Valentines Day is something that produces very mixed feelings in me. I love the idea of Valentines day, as a day to particularly express your love for an individual. It does sadden me that for some, this is the ONLY day they think to spend a little extra time or effort in letting their loved one know how much they mean to them.
I have been lucky enough to grow up in New Zealand, where Valentines day is known, and some effort is made by the romantics to honour the date. I was rather stunned to experience my first Valentines day with school aged children in Canada, where, as in the USA, every child under a certain age will purchase a set of cards, to give one to every other child in their class. Once over a certain age, that expectation is gone, and judging by the stories I have read, this leads to a great deal of angst on a variety of levels surrounding expectations of the day.
It occurs to me that I have been very lucky indeed on valentines days from when I was 13 years of age.
There was a boy in my 3rd form class who I rather liked, and to whom I sent in the beginning of the 4th form ( in New Zealand our school year starts in late January) an anonymous valentines card (not that anonymous apparently, his mother quickly worked out who it was from).
When he arrived home from school, she asked "Did you give her your valentines?". He replied no, and explained that he lost his nerve, because I had not given him one... "She did!" she exclaimed producing the card that had arrived in the post.
He quickly got on his bike... in not at all nice weather... and cycled the considerable distance of 5.5km from his home to mine... beating me home, despite the fact that I was on the school bus, and my stop was the second on the route. I can not begin to imagine how furiously he must have peddled that bike.
I treasured that Valentine Card for many years, I still recall the text on the cover "Without You Valentine" and inside "I'm a raven maniac"with a cartoon style drawing of a raven flapping above a tree. We exchanged valentines in the 5th and 6th form years too. I suppose you could say we were high school sweethearts, although we never really formalised our relationship as a couple or boyfriend / girlfriend. Somehow there hadn't really been a need to, we knew how we felt about each other (and I suspect more people than I would care to know about probably did too)
In my 7th form year, Valentines day fell very shortly after the death of a dear family friend's death. I was still reeling from the news of her sudden death, and some of the implications. On valentines day, I arrived at school, and girls who barely talked to me all the previous years came up to me gushing "who is he?"; "Oh my Gosh you are SOoooOo lucky" and variations on that theme. My dazed and confused looks silenced most of them, and I got several knowing smirks, and breezy "oh never mind". Sometime after lunch, while I was in my woodwork class... the only female... a courier arrived, carrying a bouquet of red carnations and baby breath. Attached, a card with a poem, and congratulations from the radio station that had funded the bouquet.
That is when I learnt that the young gentleman I was dating at the time, had rung a local radio station with a love poem he had written, which was one of the winning entries, resulting in the flowers for me. For the next several weeks he was known at his high school as "Brother Love" after the WWF character of the same name.
The next notable Valentines day occurred during the inaugural Christchurch Festival of Romance, started by then Mayor Vicki Buck in 1992. It actually started a week earlier, as the festival ran for a week, finishing on Valentines day. There was a free open air R&B concert at the Christchurch Arts Centre, and a group of us were planning to go along. My mother dropped my sister and I off early, on her way to a meeting. Not long after, a handsome, charming gentleman, whom I had met 6 weeks prior at a New Years Party arrived. Oh he was fine looking, and I wished desperately he might find me interesting. After approximately half an hour of conversation with him, my sister interjected (Bless her) with an encouraging "Oh for gods sake you two, it's OBVIOUS you like each other, just put your arms around each other and get on with it, It's making me sick". Later that same day he kissed me. In a way that I never had been kissed before or since. It was a damned fine first kiss. It was everything I had ever wanted a kiss to be. When I first saw him at the New Year's Eve party, I was instantly hooked. With that kiss, he had me for life.
A week later, we had our first official date... on valentines day... no pressure. We started off at a dessert restaurant, Strawberry Fare, where as poor students we shared a dessert. After dessert we wandered over to a presentation of A Midsummer's Night Dream by "Shakespeare in the Park" at Mona Vale.
The next valentines day I was in Canada, doing the long distance relationship thing., by the following valentines day, we'd broken up, because long distance is HARD.
This year, will be the 16th Valentines day we will spend as husband and wife.... the 21st anniversary of our official first date. Yes, he really did have me for life with that kiss.
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