Doing It for Ourselves

I’m just about to settle in and write all day–tough the day before Valentine’s Day because I want to go card shopping and buy some little gifts and wrap them in pretty red and pink paper for tomorrow night’s family dinner. As my long time readers know, I love Valentine’s Day… love the entire month of February. In my mind it’s a pink month… pink tulips, pink roses, pink candy hearts. It’s pretty and sweet and hopeful.

I’ve never wanted Valentine’s to be about romance or sex… it’s a family day for me, a night to share with my family how much I love them and how special they are to me. The tradition of a family night for Valentine’s Day started with my parents when I was a little girl and I’ve continued it for my sons. I love giving everyone a Valentine but I also want one from everyone, too–and my boys know it, big and small.

There’s something else I always want this time of the year–flowers. Tulips and roses and lilies. Fresh sweet scented bouquets that are pink and red and lush. Flowers that are yummy and romantic and simply gorgeous. And sometimes I get them, and sometimes I don’t. And instead of being sad I don’t get them, I now buy them for myself.

Yesterday on my way home after writing all day, I went to the flower section at the grocery store and picked out a dozen pink roses and bunches of tulips and once home pulled out my favorite vases and made up arrangements to put on the kitchen counter and the dining room table and by my computer on my desk. I decorate with little silver dishes of pink conversation hearts and red and silver foil hearts dangling over the dining room table from the chandelier. And I’m glad. I love to see them, love the colors, the textures, the emotions the flowers generate. I’m also glad I’m old enough and wise enough to know that no one will be able to meet all my needs and endless expectations and that its okay I do this for me… better than okay, its necessary.

The flowers are such a little thing in the big picture but they’re so very important to me.  And just like I learned when writing Flirting with Forty, I don’t have to wait for someone to recognize me, love me, do special little things for me. I can do them for myself. I can choose to love me. I can make sure I have that extraordinary life I’ve always wanted…can make sure that extraordinary life is happening now, today.

We can do it for ourselves. And we should.

Happy early Valentine’s Day from my hopeful, grateful heart to yours.