Valentine’s Day.  How do I loathe thee, let me count the ways….

First of all, before I digress in to how many times Valentine’s Day has run over the toes of all my birthday celebrations for the last twenty two years, I would like to say: Fuck you hallmark.  This holiday is merely a way for you to make money off 99% of people who aren’t original, feeling, or creative enough to write an ode/tribute/somewhat flattering message to their sexual/love partner each February the 14th.

Let me begin with the first grade.  The good looks and charm I enjoyed for a glorious period in Kindergarten quickly gave way to overly large “adult teeth” and a pair of ugly round glasses that my Dad insisted would help me see better than a slightly more streamlined, lithe, fashionable pair of oval spectacles.  All of a sudden freckles weren’t so cute and my hair decided it wasn’t straight or curly.  Needless to say, it’s the first birthday my heart was broken. 

I remember leaving the house, Hershey’s kisses in hand (I used to keep the wrappers and the long strip of thin white paper with the blue font in my desk drawer, an early sign I would eventually be some sort of spinster hoarder) and having the greatest of expectations that I would be the most special kid at school, receive the most Valentines, and be sung a birthday anthem of the ages.

 Unfortunately, in the midst of all the creation of small Valentine’s Day notes and the distribution of roses among various students, I was all but forgotten.  My best friend’s desk was covered in little pink candy grams and several roses.  Mine was sparsely decorated with an illegibly handwritten note by the boy in our class with severe anger management problems and a chalky box of sweethearts from the teacher.  In between eating “Fax me” and “I HRT U” (easily interpreted as “I hate you”) I realized that my birthday had been swept underneath the hype of the most worthless excuse to spend money of all time. 

The day of love?  Shouldn’t we just love each other everyday?  Why do we have to shower one another with trifles and break the hearts of first graders?  As you can imagine, things only got worse after the first grade.  Hideous teasing and purposeful forgetting of my birthday ensued.  Friends ditched my celebrations for cheap dates that amounted to nothing.  Several high school boyfriends managed to forget both my birthday and Valentine’s day which should be a difficult feat considering they share a rather obvious day of the year. 

The excitement of a day defined by expensive flowers and recycled cardboard notes usually completely overshadowed the day of my glorious birth.  Translation: Everyone forgets my birthday because they were caught up in the myriad of stupid ways in which to impress the object of their desire (which was almost never me).

Prettier, blonder, more flirtatious girls were always commanding the object of my affection’s attention, I could never go out for dinner without making a reservation two months in advance.  I was always being made to feel like the furthest person from people’s minds on a day that everyone else gets to feel special.  I cannot even begin to express my disappointment when my best friends received bouquets of roses in class and my brace-faced, freckled, flat chested self wallowed in a considerable puddle of misery and neglect the whole school-day-long.

I would go home to my parents’ house miserable and inexplicably disappointed by my Mother’s home made strawberry shortcake.  Everyone likes strawberry shortcake, especially when it’s homemade.  So fuck you Valentine’s Day.  It’s my birthday.  Not a day for making freckled, awkward little girls feel like they’re ugly, unloved, and forgotten.

In terms of the celebration of love, why don’t we celebrate it every day.  We don’t need an overstocking of chocolate hearts, Hershey’s kisses and Scooby Doo mazes to show that we care about one another.  Celebrate love every day, and for fuck’s sake stop stealing the courage of the little girls whose desks aren’t showered in tokens of appreciation.

Oh, and stop fucking with my birthday.  Thanks.