When I was a little girl my most recurrent memory of Valentine's Day was decorating my box each year to collect the Valentines that would be exchanged at school. I vaguely remember writing out the Valentines to each classmate but the big deal to me was having a highly decorated shoebox to take to school. My Mom is pretty creative in that way--and a lot of other ways--so she always had plenty of items for me to use for bedazzling. At that young age I associated Valentine's Day with the Valentine exchange and not much else. I recall one year when I was still in grade school when my Mom gave me a dark red sweater for Valentine's Day. She probably got me something every year but for some reason that sticks out in my mind and I was touched by getting an actual gift at Valentine's Day. From a very young age my Dad and I shared a love of chocolate and he always got me a box of chocolates each year--usually a heart-shaped box.
As the years went by Valentine's Day took on a bit of a different meaning and it was all about who was going to be "your Valentine." The first Valentine's Day that I remember being truly smitten was when I was in 8th grade. His name was Mark and I had a junior high crush on him for two solid years--literally from the beginning of 7th grade all the way through 8th grade. In fact, it was so significant that I found that there were still emotions attached years later to a particular object. Some time during the last couple years I was at my parents' house and was walking through their bedroom. On my Mom's nightstand was a little ceramic flowered picture frame. It was really small--the size that holds a small school picture. Suddenly, seeing that picture frame brought about a feeling of angst mixed with young love. I stared at the frame trying to figure out what made me feel that way when I looked at it. Then, it dawned on me that this was the frame that held Mark's 7th grade, and then 8th grade, school pictures. I would spend hours looking at it as a young girl but the frame, to this day, still held on to those painful, hormonal, 13-year-old emotions. Anyway, I digress. Now back to Valentine's Day when I was in 8th grade. We had a banquet at church and somehow, someway Mark asked me to be his date. My friend, Sara, was "double-dating" with Mark's friend and it was a most momentous event to a 13-year-old. I don't remember much except that after we ate we walked from one building to another. It had snowed that week and basically all that was left was a little snow and a lot of ice. Of course, junior highers doing as junior highers do, a snowball (iceball) fight ensued. Mark would not remember this, of course, but he ended up clocking me in the side of the head with a ball of ice. It left a nice bruise and it hurt, but to a 13-year-old girl it meant that he cared enough to aim at me. I wore the bruise proudly.
When I was 16 years old there was a Valentine's banquet at another church and two boys I was friends with invited me to go. Their names were Scott and Shane and they were both 15, so neither one of them drove yet. I didn't want to hurt either of their feelings so I told both of them I would go. Since they were friends they decided it would be OK if I drove and picked each of them up and so that's the way the night went. All very innocent, but we got some funny looks when they were taking pictures and there were three of us in the shot.
My first really, truly, I-knew-I-was-in-love boyfriend was Kelly. He truly was my first love and being that he was my first love and we dated for all of 18 months you would think I would remember the Valentine's Day when we were a couple. I'm sure it was special, if it could have been special with him away at college for a lot of that time, but I just don't remember. I'm not sure if Kelly reads my blog or not and if that Valentine's Day was an event and I don't recall it I apologize. Obviously, we've both moved on and are happily married--to other people.
Probably, my most memorable Valentine's Day ever occurred my freshman year in college--which was a few months after Kelly and I went through our heart-wrenching--on my part--break-up. Why does a girl remember the break-up but not the Valentine's Day? Anyway, I had gotten pretty good my freshman year in college at "playing the field." I won't go into details in this post, but if you've ever been a girl in college who lived in a dorm you know--even if you're not willing to admit it--that you want to be one of the girls who gets flowers delivered to the dorm. You want them to stay in the lobby for a little while, so others can see them, and you certainly want your name to be paged over the loud speaker telling you that there are flowers in the lobby that need to be picked up. Come on, girls, be honest and admit it. Well, one of the highlights of my year spent in Burgess Hall at Evangel College was being the "girl with all the flowers" on Valentine's Day. Here's how it went down. I was a little-more-than-just-friends with a boy named James who lived in Tulsa. We would go out when he came to town and we had been friends since junior high. In fact, he's the one who convinced me to transfer to ORU to complete my degree and that was one of the best decisions in my life. James sent me flowers on Valentine's Day and when he called to ask me about them and I described them, they were NOT what he had ordered. So, he called the florist and had a dozen red roses delivered. Both bouquets were beautiful. Right after Valentine's Day he came to visit and just to be sure I got the right flowers he brought more roses. All three bouquets were beautiful. Also, on Valentine's Day a bouquet of pink roses arrived. Those were from Greg, someone who I had been friends with since high school and with whom I had recently been on a date. All four bouquets of flowers were beautiful. Honestly, I think my roommate, Suntaree, was a little annoyed with me because they were starting to infringe on her space and our room smelled like a funeral parlor for about a week. People would stop by my room just to see the "girl with all the flowers." It was a short-lived moment in the spotlight not to be repeated in my next three years in college. Beginner's luck, I suppose.
Only a month after that wonderful aforementioned Valentine's Day I met my true love. His name was Lindy Carnett and we met on March 11, 1991. All thoughts of playing the field went right out the window and I was deeply in love from the first moment I saw him. Since we are coming up on the 20 year anniversary of my love-at-first-sight moment I'll be saving the details of the beginning of our relationship for another post in March. We were immediately inseparable and spent the rest of the school year--until he graduated and left for California--out every night together until curfew. When the next Valentine's Day rolled around we were still dating, albeit long distance as I was in Tulsa by this time and he was in St. Charles. It was really difficult trying to decide what to get him for Valentine's Day. One of the boys mentioned above--and I won't say which one-- said that all a guy really wants on Valentine's Day is a really good kiss. I would say that's a pretty fair statement and we weren't one of those couples like the Duggars who saved the kissing for after the wedding. I still felt it necessary to get him a gift. Guys aren't usually into flowers so instead I had a bouquet of 11 balloons delivered to his office to symbolize the 11 months we had been together. He, in turn, bought me a plane ticket to fly up to St. Charles for Valentine's Day. Where did he take me for dinner? Not where you might think. It wasn't really known as a romantic place. He took me to KC Masterpiece Bar-B-Q. Seriously. I wasn't upset by that because KC Masterpiece had fabulous Bar-B-Q but it's not the first restaurant that comes to mind for Valentine's Day. We didn't spend all of the Valentine's Days together between 1992 and the year we got married. Now, that's really a post for another day. However, I distinctly remember our first Valentine's Day as a married couple. It was 1997 and Lindy asked me what I wanted to do. I told him to surprise me, and surprise me he did. Where did we go? Well, back to KC Masterpiece because that's where we spent our first Valentine's Day as a couple. I was touched that he remembered and it was very sweet.
I haven't had as many Valentine's Day bouquets delivered to my office over the years as I had in college and that's OK. The ones that have been most beautiful are those that were hand-crafted by Judy in Granite City. Just gorgeous. My new motto has almost become, "If they aren't made by Judy they just aren't worth it." In fact, I'm much more practical now and have been known to get really upset if too much money is spent on flowers. I know that's terrible and I should just be grateful to have a husband that cares that much. That's all I'll say about that because it was kind of an ugly Valentine's Day one year when I found out how much he spent. Not pretty--the flowers were but I was not.
We've now spent many, many Valentine's Days together and if I was more of a romantic I would remember each one. Part of the problem contributing to my memory of this holiday is that our anniversary is in March and so sometimes Valentine's Day and anniversary memories run together. I do remember the Valentine's Day that fell the month before our 10th anniversary. I remember it so well because the card from his flowers still hangs on our refrigerator. It says something about being thankful that I had given him three beautiful boys--and at the time I was very pregnant with Gavin and we took him home from the hospital on our 10th anniversary. It was a very sweet card because he was already referring to our 3 boys when we really only had 2.8 boys at that time.
I remember our 11th year as a married couple but I'm not sure if I'm recalling Valentine's Day or our anniversary. Lindy took me to the Melting Pot--now that's a romance-worthy restaurant--and he had a bouquet of 11 roses sitting on our table to symbolize the 11 years we had been married. We have a picture of that night, and if I was at home and not in Utah, I would show it here.
So, enough of Valentine's past. What happened today on this Valentine's Day? We went snowmobiling with our three beautiful boys and then went to dinner together. Lindy said he owes me a dinner out with just the two of us and I'm sure he'll come through on that. I got all four of my boys heart-shaped Reece's peanut butter cups and we celebrated the day together. After all, it's really about celebrating the love we all have for one another.
Happy Valentine's Day to you. I'd love for you to comment about your most memorable Valentine's Day. Hope this year was a good one.
Valentine's Day was always special to you. I'm glad you have had so many good ones.
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