Valentine’s Day is right around the corner. Can you believe it? Only 9 more days until the world explodes with expressions and overt gestures of love. Oh, I love LOVE.
When I was in my early 20’s Valentine’s Day was all about having a guy to shower me with some gift that I could show off to my girlfriends to show that “he loves me! HE really loves me!” ( because obviously, you know, i was too young and dumb to know what that even meant.) I know because he bought me this (insert cheesy item) 75% of piece of jewelry, bouquet of roses ( which I detest and remind me of a funeral), took me out to dinner, brought me a bouquet of Twizzlers, sent me cheap chocolates or bought cheap Champagne, even cheaper lingerie and tore up some of the cheap roses he bought me all over the bed. Yes, those are the things that impress you when you are 21/22-years-old. It was more about the show of showering me with love than the actual act of loving me because at 21, what did any of us know about real, true to God, honest, unconditional love? Not much. Not me anyways. Then I grew up.
Now, Valentine’s Day is not about things because there is nothing that can replace the unconditional love and support that I have received from the Big Guy all these 17 years. We have grown up together. We have built a family. Built a life. He is my home and my soft place to land when the world has beaten me to a bloody pulp and I am his. He has given me everything I never knew I always wanted and he has made me a better person, just by loving me so damn deeply and unconditionally. He’s made me not afraid to try because I know if I fail, he will be there to love me harder for having tried.He knows that I love him even when I want the rest of the world to fall away.
What women really want for Valentine’s Day
As you can see by this infographic, most women don’t want roses, flowers or chocolates on Valentine’s Day. Roses and flowers wither and die. Once you eat chocolates they are gone. What most of us want it not to be told that you love us on Valentine’s Day but to be shown that you love us every single day of our lives. Love is something a person wants to feel; to know. It doesn’t need to be shouted from the highest mountain top, it only needs to be whispered with sincerity into our ear; to be felt in your embrace or your kiss.
The best give my husband has ever given me, aside from his unconditional love, our children and a certain diamond ring, is the one he gives me every Mother’s Day and Valentine’s day, a day off of life; a day of relaxation with no responsibilities. It sounds simple, I know but by him taking responsibility off my shoulders is more than just a day to relax and indulge in pampering myself, it is about acknowledging that he loves me enough to pay attention to what I really need; time to myself to just be.
Sometimes relaxing is watching a movie in bed with no interruptions, taking a hot bubble bath with the door locked or escaping and unwinding by creating a real pamper session at home with indulgent body care or foot care products by myself. Just knowing that I have the freedom and time to do those things that I took for granted before I had children is now a luxury.
The thing I want most this Valentine’s Day is to spend it with my husband, just being a couple. I know he loves me, every day of the year, but I’d like to spend this Valentine’s Day by sending the girls to spend the night at Grandma’s house, spending some time pampering myself, giving the Big Guy time to do something he enjoys before having a quiet, grown up dinner together and at the end of the day just falling into the arms of the man I love and talking about nothing and everything without interruption. That sounds like the perfect Valentine’s Day to me.
What is your idea of the perfect Valentine’s Day?
Disclosure: The infographic about what Women really want for Valentine’s Day was provided as part of a brand collaboration.