Valentine's Schmalentines

Okay, so today is Valentine's Day - and while I am a sentimental kind of gal and love to let the people that I love know how I feel about them, there is something about the obligatory nature of a holiday saying that I have to do so that kinda rubs my fur backwards. I love you - those of you that I love - and you better know who you are - and I don't need a holiday mandate to tell me to do so. I mean if you really think about it - how pathetic is that? If we aren't loving on those we love and telling them so on a regular basis, I don't think a holiday is going to change that.
I have been a schmuck like the rest - and been caught up in the hoopty doo of it all. (BTW- I seem to be making spell-check go crazy!) I have spent many, many a miserable Valentine's day. For years I have had these secret expectations of heart boxes full of chocolates, and flowers delivered in the middle of the day, and being whisked away to a romantic dinner over candlelight - only in my life there is no whisking, and no candles (except the jar kind I buy for myself!), and while there is sometimes chocolate and flowers - I would much rather have them come on a day when my husband decides to bring them to me because he thinks of me, and because he decides he wants to show me how much he loves me - or not. Usually it's the not that gets me. And no matter what the poor guy does, there will always be the rest of the world pushing it in my face that somebody else got something better (ie. is loved MORE) - be it the evening news, Victoria's Secret catalog, or the hype of balloons, flowers and confections everywhere you turn at the local Walmart. This creates in me a heart of discontent, and it is a killer both emotionally and spiritually.
I hate to rain on anyone's Valentine's Day. It's great to be romantic. I have just learned that my husband is an individual who will express his love to me in his own unique ways - and to look for those and delight in them. I know he feels pressure - and I know it makes him miserable. This morning I woke to a beautiful white heart carved out of a piece drywall with "I love you" written in red (one year I got a piece of wood with "Travis Loves Julie" carved into it - evidently his love for me provokes him to carve into things!) - and a sweet valentine card. And while these things are treasured and precious - they are obligatory. He does them because he doesn't want to disappoint me, because he loves me - but is this an expression of love itself? Not directly.
What it boils down to is this - when I ask my husband if he loves me, he says, "Yes, I love you - you should just know that" - and I do.