Can I get a heart-shaped salad?

There are heart-shaped helium balloons in the checkout line at Kroger.

Pink and red have invaded the center aisle at Meijer, and a Gorilla holding a heart sang “Love Me True” to me as I walked into Target yesterday.

It must be Valentines.

I considered jumping on the “Valentines Day sucks” bandwagon again this year. It’s been a comfortable place for me over the past two bitter years. I sit there, nose in the air scoffing at the fools who buy into the chocolate dipped holiday. Scowl at people holding hands. Whisper under my breath “get a room” to the people kissing on the corner. I perpetuated the idea that love poems don’t exist, and even suggested buying cactus for each other because it seems to me it is the least loving plant in existence. But I donated my bitter pants to the Salvation Army a month an a half ago, and I don’t miss them one bit.

Being in love doesn’t mean I have to love Valentines Day though.

I could join those who argue that Valentines Day is just a cliché, that we shouldn’t need a holiday to remind us to celebrate the people we love. I suppose that’s true. Everyday is a good day for chocolate, flowers and love letters. Especially love letters. Is it really so wrong though to have a holiday reminding us to celebrate love? Isn’t that what all holiday’s are about, reminding us to celebrate?

Thanksgiving is a reminder to give thanks for our blessings.

Christmas is about remembering the birth of Jesus.

Veterans Day, Halloween, Easter, Flag Day, Presidents day, Martin Luther King Jr. day, they are all reminders to celebrate something that we don’t think of everyday. If Valentines Day is a cliché because it is a reminder, then logic would follow that the rest of them are too. I don’t buy that.

I’ve heard the argument that Valentines Day “reinforces gender roles”. It’s crap. No, I don’t need anyone to buy me tulips to put on my kitchen table. I can buy my own box of chocolates, even heart shaped if I want. I can afford to buy my own dinner. And I can make my own play list of really cheesy love songs, even burn them to a CD and write a dedication to myself if I want to:

“To Liz: I love you and I’ll always be here for you. All my heart, Liz”

It’s not quite the same.

The truth is, I love Valentines Day and always have.

It’s cheesy, like Phil Collins singing “Groovy Kind of Love”.

I love cheese.

In seventh grade, cute but dumb gave me a yellow haired troll. I broke up with him the next day. It wasn’t because of the troll.

My senior year, my first real boyfriend brought me six pink roses.

My mom gave me a silver heart necklace, which I still cherish.

I’ve gotten carnations, the ugliest flower in the world.

A tiny heart shaped box of chocolates.

A dozen red roses delivered to work.

Fancy dinners at expensive restaurants.

Shared a sundae at McDonalds because a dollar was all we could scrounge up.

Had “Angel Eyes” dedicated to me on a local radio station.

I loved all of it.

I’m not ashamed.

It’s okay to admit you love it too.

I won’t tell.