First, let me say that Valentine's Day has never been a huge deal to me. I can think of two years that stand out.
1) In school, I finally had a boyfriend at Valentine's Day. Girls always got ridiculously large balloons and goofy stuff from their high school sweeties, and I finally got my turn. I got a big bunny rabbit with floppy ears who had a little pouch on his arm. My boyfriend told me the bunny had carrots in his pouch. When I looked....well, they were karats. A sweet, gold bracelet. To this day, when I see a gold bracelet, I think "Carrots! Karats! Ha!" and laugh a little bit. People look at me funny, but they don't know what a clever bit of wordplay I'm remembering.
2) When Chris and I were engaged (hm...maybe we weren't engaged yet...but we were close - it all kind of blends together after this long), I planned an elaborate beach breakfast picnic. We woke up early and drove to the East coast. It was beautiful, and those little heart-shaped Runts that I packed to scatter on the picnic blanket are still my favorite Valentine's Day candy because they remind me of that day.
Other than that, it's a good time to find some novelty chocolate and that's about all. But once I had kids, I started getting a little more into it. We've developed traditions, as we have with all other holidays and celebrations, and we've had lots of fun with it.
But as a working mom, I've had to learn to let go of a lot of things. To many women, this is no big deal. But to me (there will be a few of you out there who really *get* what I'm saying here), being a good mom and homemaker is a calling - it's my purpose. So, letting go of mom-things, or at least the things that I like to do as a mom, is pretty tough for me. Holidays are certainly not as elaborate as they have been in my house. By elaborate, I don't mean expensive either. Typically for, say, Valentines Day, I will stay up really late setting up a table with themed paper plates and a little heart-shaped box of chocolates for the kids. I'll cut the butter into my biscuit dough and stick it in the fridge so that all I have to do is add the milk, roll and cut it into heart shapes. We'll have a lovely breakfast of heart-shaped biscuits and strawberry milk.
Not so much now.
It hadn't really hit me that I'm not doing much of this kind of stuff anymore until this morning. Andrew woke up and gave us hugs in the kitchen, then stole a furtive glance at the table. He didn't say anything, but I saw a flash of disappointment on his face when all that he found was last night's homework and some junk mail. And then I felt sick to my stomach. All morning. We signed their cards while we were getting dressed and managed to unceremoniously present the kids with a little chocolate and a card, but I know it isn't the same. Somehow, I didn't think it'd matter. And it didn't until that moment. Maybe not as much for Emma, because she doesn't have as many holidays under her belt as Drew, but it mattered.
That's the point at which I started to torture myself. Would it have been so hard to plan ahead? Couldn't I have remembered strawberry milk at some point before this morning and dropped by the grocery store?
Then Chris asked me what was for dinner. Yeah - we don't typically do Valentine's Day dinner out together. Unromantic? Maybe...but we like our kids and don't necessarily have to go out and wait two hours for a table, while paying a babysitter to stay with our two other favorite people in the world in order to know that we love each other. But he asked me what was for dinner, and I remembered that I usually make spaghetti (with homemade sauce) and heart-shaped meatballs for Valentine's Day dinner. And probably some decorated cookies or cupcakes. Why didn't I really remember that before this morning? Because I let go of my need to be Suzie Homemaker and Working Wonder Mom at the same time.
I don't let go of things easily. I recently had coffee with an old friend and finally let go of the fact that, six years ago, I told him we'd go out for dinner. Not that that was the sole reason for going out (at all!), but I finally felt like I'd fulfilled my promise. I'm pretty ridiculous about stuff like that.
It seems that I haven't had any trouble letting go of the tasks, but the guilt? It's a little harder to do. Maybe I haven't let go of my need to be all things to all people. Maybe I managed to temporarily put it out of my mind....sort of like the strawberry milk. Maybe it's one of those things that can lay there for a long time and then pounce on you when you are most defenseless.
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