The Day-After Valentine's Day (A Monday Post on Tuesday)

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 Happy Day-After Valentine's Day! Sending virtual celebratory balloons and champagne to all those who got engaged, shared candlelit dinners or actually got a babysitter so they could eat something more upscale than chicken fingers. 

29 years ago yesterday, my husband proposed. Our early Valentine's Days were all hearts and flowers and, up until a few years ago, dinner out was always our go-to celebration. But, after almost 29 years of marriage (engaged and married in the same year), our Valentine's Days are more comfortable than full-tilt gala. We celebrate and and he's still very good at the chocolate, flowers and jewelry trifecta, but we care less about going out on Valentine's Day or making it upscale. It works for us. 

My husband had the day off yesterday, but I didn't. In both of my classes, we discussed the impact of time, place and culture on human development. Social media came up, of course, and we talked about its pros and cons, including the unrealistic expectations it fosters in impressionable young minds.

It's been a long time since I had an impressionable young mind but, when it comes to holidays, those same unrealistic expectations rise up, not just on social media but from the very culture itself. I remember dreading Valentine's Day (and New Year's Eve) as a single woman in my twenties -- and that was long before Instagram -- because I felt more single and more isolated. There wasn't enough sunblock on the planet to protect me from the glare of the light emanating from those who had what I did not. And even a master's degree did not confer enough wisdom to generate the self-talk necessary to keep me from devolving into self-pity.

Holidays are, at best, a double-edged sword, with the potential to separate us into haves and have nots, and to make the same day feel celebratory to some and agonizing to others. So, to those of you who did not get engaged, married, share a candlelight dinner or get (or need) a babysitter yesterday, I send the same virtual  balloons and champagne to go with the sigh of relief you likely let out when Valentine's Day was over, along with a virtual hug for making it through National Romance Day.

Happy Tuesday.