About what's so nice about Valentine's Day

To love is to receive a glimpse of heaven.
Karen Sunde

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Fortune favors the brave.
Virgil

I admit it- I buy into the whole kit and caboodle; I love Valentine's Day and what it stands for. I like going into stores and seeing chocolate samplers and huge bouquets of flowers and cheesy heart-shaped anythings. I like seeing frustrated men scouring the card aisle and little kids picking out valentines to hand out in school. It is a holiday created especially to let people know how much they mean to you, and I think that is very important, and very wonderful.

In a perfect world, we wouldn't need a specific day designated for expressing heartfelt emotions. But, the fact is- most of us are too busy and reticent to display our emotions that freely. It takes courage and self-reflection to be open and speak from the heart. So now Hallmark tells us when it is time to send out little tokens of your affection. However corporate or inauthentic the concept of a Hallmark holiday may seem, I don't really think it matters, what matters is that you celebrate the people who are important to you. And frankly, I think Valentine's Day comes right at the perfect time: it's mid-February, things are looking a little bleak and spring seems a long way off. The magic of Christmas is long since gone, and the hope of a new year has given way to the realities of tax season. This is a time during which the whispering of sweet nothings can truly be appreciated.

So, for all my enthusiasm for Valentines Day, how will I be spending it? Well my boyfriend is away on business, so I'll be with my friends celebrating the day by watching an apocalyptic movie about a bleak future where traditional fertility methods have failed and human relations have had to be re-defined. Together, over images of the potential futility of romantic love, we will be celebrating our friendship and the ties that bond. Sweet nothings to be heard another day...