Category: unsolicited advice

Unsolicited Advice: Valentine’s Day (Couples Edition)

Love is, mostly, personal.

I say “mostly” because, well, hell, look around you today — there’s probably something shiny, red, floral, or made of chocolate staring at you from where you sit, subtly implying or outright declaring that you, too, should have such or give such or somesuch …

Hell with that. 
Unless, that is, what you really want is something shiny/red/floral/chocolatey, in which case, have it. 

If, on the other hand, you’d prefer, why not something personal? 
My wife and I celebrated this day eight years ago with a full-on Thanksgiving-style turkey dinner, and that remains my favorite Valentine’s Day observance so far. 
We didn’t even call it Valentine’s Day; we called it Day [#], where [#] was the number of days we’d been together as a couple. 
Every Feb. 14 since, we’ve observed Day [#] basically the same way. 
In so doing, we took something general and made it something mostly our own. 

I say “mostly” because, of course, we are still hewing to a date on a calendar, even if we call it by another name. 
Mind you, when a random July day rolls around and a turkey dinner sounds wonderful, Day [#] is there for us, too.