Getting all lovey-dovey and being all romantic mushy crap?

Not me.

Getting all lovey-dovey, mushy crap romanticising Valentine’s Day and spending unnecessary money on over-priced presents and dinner in the name of love?

Well…just.not.me!

I have, for more than 2 decades now, boycotted V-Day and everything that has to do with it. Maybe it has stemmed from the fact that I’ve always been “one of the boys” and often over-looked next to the prettier and more popular girls in school.  Those girls received flowers and gifts from secret admirers; I got flowers from shy boys asking me to give flowers to the girls they have a crush on, on their behalf.

Very normal. C’est la vie!

So. I can’t seem to get my head around the fuss behind this V-Day. It’s a day I don’t usually give two craps about and it is usually the day when I’m DYING to get away from all the cutesy giant red heart-shaped balloons and fluffy teddy-bears littered all across town.

In my books, (the wasteful show of love) THAT’S NOT normal.

There are 365 days in a year, and why oh why, do people spend their life savings on this one day to show love, when we could be showing our love not just on V-Day, but whenever and wherever we can? No need to revere this one day, but rather, shouldn’t we try to make any other day as special as we want to make it out to be?

Besides, sometimes, I think we don’t tell the people we truly love how much we love them often enough. And I know that I can be guilty of that sometimes, but that for me, is no excuse to worship yet another day marketed by Hallmark.

I think I have done enough eye-ball rolling about V-Day and the days that leading up to V-Day, cringing away in gusto at the sights of red heart fluffies, chocolates and roses sold at triple the original prices. Even my blog feeds have mostly been filled with them (sorry guys, please don’t take any offence to this and yes, I read your V-Day posts on quotes and special recipes) and I can’t seem to escape this annual epidemic.

A few days ago, both Spud and Squirt came back with a note from school for us to do 2 things:

1. Dress the girls in pink and the boys in red on Friday for the school’s Valentine’s Day celebration (My! They are starting young with all this lovey-dovey crap)
2. Write a love note for them on a heart-shaped paper that was attached to their daily report book.

Oh great. Now what do I write? Why do we even have to do this! And mind you, I already tell them I love them. Every single day.

Not wanting to be a spoil-sport and leaving my kids with the only ones with no love letters from their parents,  I sighed a big sigh – mostly fretting about what to write. Then, I remembered that, coincidentally, I had read a blogpost on V-Day earlier that very morning (I told you I read your posts!) and thought that it was more than appropriate for a short note to my kids. The post had actually made me smile. (No kidding!).

Inspired by Yuvathi’s I Promise post, I crafted these…

Fast forward to yesterday, at the request of Spud for us to stay to watch her  V-Day performance after the usual school drop-off,  we lingered around for a bit during the kids’ morning assembly. It was a morning full of mushy songs. Great!

After their little dance performance (only love songs of course!), this was when it got a little unexpected just as we were about to leave – the teacher approached me to come forward to personally read the love letter we wrote for our kids in front of 20 other people. With a microphone no less! Yikes.

I had declined from the on-set (I needed to be at work!) thinking that the teacher could do it, but complied after much insistence. Squirt was the first to be read to, and I realised that we couldn’t quite leave until Spud had her turn, too.

I don’t know if I was imagining things, but I thought I saw a couple of parents who lingered teared-up after I was done reading to Squirt. But it could be just real – I felt a lump in my throat and teared as I stood there listening to the teacher reading the other parents’ written love letters to the kids.

I Know I Can’t Promise You

“Everything”

But One, I Can For Sure

” That I Will Always Love You..” 

Always… <3

— by Yuvathi —

 

I then realised that somehow, it did feel  a little more special that I got to be the one reading that note personally to my kids in such a spontaneous setting. Thank you for the inspiration, Yuvathi.

V-Day or not, this piece of memory would stay with me for a long, long time to come. And, while I still don’t fancy the over-rated extravaganzas associated with Valentine’s Day, this I can take…along with a small bunch of flowers from Silver Bullet and hand-made cards from the kids. *counting my blessings*

 

Related post(s)

V-Day Hand Painting 2013

V-Day Rant 2011