Here's your card. My Love.

 
photo credit
Susan King
2011



Dear one,

I went to the card store and I read them all.  Well, maybe not all of them.  I skipped a few with teddy bears on the front and passed over one with boobs.  But I read a lot of them.

sigh...Valentine's cards...sigh...

All the muck and the rhyming and the sexual innuendo.  Here's what the crown store wanted me to say to you today...with a card purchased for $5.49. 

Happiness always...
Not likely.  So don't set me up for that, please.  I love Hollywood movies and Disney princess stories as much as the next girl, but even I know happiness is not always possible.  You are my Prince Phillip, minus the leggings and the horse thank God, but I don't expect us to be happy always.  Just hug me tighter when we're not.  And kiss me goodnight anyway. 

All we need is love...
And oxygen.  And vegetables.  And gas for the car.  And respect for each other.  And patience.  And, and, and...Yes, we need love, but not because it's the only thing in our lives.  We need love because it holds all the other things together.  It's the glue that gathers up cooking together and dealing with house guests and parenting daughters while one of us is away and taking turns going to the gym and sticks them all together.  There are lots of things we need in our life, and loving you holds it all together. 

We have weathered the storm...
Yes.  We certainly have.  Several times.  And it was hard, but we came through it.  The part that gets left out of the Valentine verse is how the current storm may be over, but there will be others.  Storms are hard.  And destructive.  And oftentimes unexpected.  And the bad news is they stay hard.  But we have gotten so much better at dealing with them.  Our relationship has seen some storms and some damage and then some repair and rebuilding.  So we're stronger than we were before.  And when the next one hits, we'll remember what we learned from the last one. 

You're my everything...
Well...no.  You're not.  But you're one of my favorite things.  And I love what we've made.  The life.  The girls.  The stories.  And I love my life more because you're part of it.  That's my everything. 

You've never let me down...
You are quite famous for letting me down, actually.  You knew, all those years ago, I would always be prone to jumping, flying off the handle and living on the verge.  You knew it was going to be a ride and that your arms would open up wide enough, to be my parachute, and let me down.  Just when I needed you to.  Over and over. 

I'll be in love with you forever...
Well, My Love, I'm not.  Not anymore.  When I decided that it was forever, Love changed from this thing I was in, to this thing that I do.  Loving.  Loving you means I'm doing something.  I'm giving back.  Shifting to compensate.  Celebrating the victories.  Towing the line.  Taking the time.  Telling you.  Showing you.  Needing you.  It's the doing that gives Love power.  Makes it last.    We've been at this for awhile, I don't give Love anymore.  I can't be in Love.  I have to do Love. 

My Valentine's prose doesn't rhyme, probably wouldn't look so good in a fancy script with sunset pictures in the background and wouldn't sell many cards. 

But it's truth.  And I love you.  And that's priceless.

Happy Valentine's Day, My Love.