My Year Round Valentine

Slumped in my comfy chair in front of my antique desk, I stared at the computer screen, searching in vain for an idea that had disappeared as quickly as it had materialized. Swell, I thought, the deadline is looming, I’ve just had a discussion with my boy-friend about why he doesn’t like Valentine’s Day and I am not in the mood to write about love.

Now, I’ll grant you, he had some very valid points. Valid enough, that what I wanted to say would have seemed pretty lame. What would I have said? Because I’d like to receive flowers. Because I like mushy stuff and squishy teddy-bears. Because, because… because I’m female and, well, it is just one of those things! I get it. My best friend would get it. Him? Nope. Doesn’t, won’t, probably never will. And I put up with it because I love him.

Does he really need to give me a red squishy teddy bear that will end up in a closet to prove he loves me? Of course not. He shows me every day! Heck, he doesn’t even need to say, “I love you.” Because I know he does, and he knows he does and well, it is simpler leaving it alone. But.

Ah, the infamous ‘but.’ I sigh, and from across the room he says, “You okay, hon?”
“I’m fine.” I answer and go back to staring at my screen as if that would make some incredible thought just appear there. I’m still staring a few minutes later, when he says, “Here’s a fresh cup of coffee, thought you might need it.” Simple kindnesses--He serves them up on a daily basis: Full meals of thoughtful acts. When thanked, he is likely to say, “I’m just being me, I’m not doing anything special.” And he really means it! Sometimes I want to toss a pillow at him really, really hard! *Thwap!* Course, when I do that, it usually dissolves into a pillow-fight which further degenerates into a tickle-fight and then, still giggling, we go back to what ever it was we were doing.

We have a thing we call the ‘early morning, not awake coffee dance.’ Two people, small kitchen with an impossible layout: It is a one person kitchen. But we can make coffee, pour it, dump in the sweetener while the other grabs the ice for his coffee, and the milk for mine. A well rehearsed done-it-a-million-times routine that never fails to make us smile.

Or I’ll get up and make the coffee at four-thirty in the morning, so that he can sleep in that extra fifteen minutes. For some reason, out of the (old clichéd phrase alert) goodness of my heart I set my cell phone and get up early just to make him his coffee and bring it to him in bed. He flat out loves it, and in the grand scheme of things, is such a very little kind thing to so.

Then there’s lasagna. Twenty years ago I made him a fancy dinner, complete with red and white checked tablecloth, Chianti bottles dripping with colored wax and home-made lasagna. He ate two helpings and we had a wonderful evening. Fast forward through the next twenty years during which we parted amicably and went about our separate lives until two years ago when we ran into each other again and have been together ever since. When I invited him to dinner soon after and asked him what he'd like to have (having already gone out and bought all the lasagna makings) he said as long as it was anything but lasagna. Turns out he doesn’t like lasagna, never did, but ate it anyway the first time around but didn’t EVEN want to go through that again!

That comment lead to a conversation about communication. A wonderful conversation which continued over dinner, that ended up being pizza! The box of lasagna noodles stayed in the cupboard and the rest of the stuff I had bought for it went in the fridge. When we moved in together a few months later, I put the food from my apartment into his pantry. He was helping unpack the box and picked up the box of lasagna. The expression on his face was priceless. I told him not to worry, but that I had kept it for a reason.

“If ever we need to talk about something, we can get the box of lasagna out, open it and leave a piece of lasagna out. That way we know we need to have a chat. We don’t need anymore ‘lasagna moments’ in the future.”

That was two years ago. The box of lasagna is buried way in the back of the pantry. We have yet to need it, or use it. We have yet to have a serious disagreement, let alone an argument! We figure ten years from now we will frame it and put it over the fireplace or something. Who ever would have thought a box of lasagna would be a harbinger of peace?

Which brings me to another thought. None of which has anything to do with what I should be writing, but, hey…I’m on a roll! Peace. We have an incredibly peaceful existence. Oh sure, we worry about money and the bills and all that sort of stuff, but we don’t fight about money, or chores. We each have our special things we do that are Important,( capitol ‘I’ please note! ) With me, it is my writing. With him, it is deer hunting. We each indulge the other’s passion.

He listens to my writing, and offers good comments and sometimes, even an idea or two. I get up early, make coffee and wake him up to Ted Nugent’s “Fred Bear” at full blast (even if it is 4:30 in the morning.)

Hunting season means don’t make plans during deer camp weeks or for dawn or dusk from October first through New Year’s day. It means that any time he gets a deer, any later plans will be summarily cancelled because he’ll be busy processing the deer. Oh wait. WE will be busy processing said deer, and then I get to fry up back straps. Life is good.

Writing means deadlines. Deadlines mean late dinners, ‘scrounge nights’ and his keeping the coffee pot full. They mean his listening to umpteen revisions of whatever I’m working on. Deadlines mean he answers the phone, takes care of the puppy runs and laundry will pile up until he runs out of underwear, at which point, he does it himself. And then makes more coffee. Coffee.

Joy is arriving home from work, and knowing that regardless of the time of my arrival, if he is home, there will be a fresh pot of coffee. Always. No matter what. He comes home from hunting and there is a can of ‘blue’ iced and waiting. We do these things because we find joy in these simple things we do for each other.

We also find joy in the things we don’t do together. That might be his taking off on a Saturday to go help a friend or what I call ‘his male bonding times.’ The short definition of this is his ‘drinking with his buddies’ times.

Or the fact we both have a disease in common. We both have ‘pack-ratitus’ complicated by a severe case of flat-surface-itus. We have a problem keeping any flat surface clean and uncluttered. It takes a supreme effort or something like the annual Christmas party to get us to clear off all the surfaces and find places to put the stuff. In fact our first annual Christmas party was a subterfuge designed to finally get all his tools from the remodel out of the dining room. It worked, the party was a success and we already have the date set for our 3rd annual party. We take the day before it off so we can be sure that cleared off surfaces don’t have time to re-clutter! And none of this is an issue. One of us gets out of work and are on the cell with the other one as soon as the car is going towards home. Doesn’t matter that home is only twenty minutes away, we can’t wait that long! I think my partner’s middle name should be Joy. I expect he wouldn’t think too highly of that idea though!

But it true. He gives me joy. I give him love. We give to each other a thousand times a day, naturally, with little forethought or ulterior motive. We just, as he would say, ‘Git ‘er done!’

He just brought me a cup of coffee after offering to make me some fresh if I didn’t want the bottom of the pot. Now he’s outside snow-blowing the driveway. Which brings me around back to the beginning. His hand-made Valentine’s Card will be waiting for him when he gets home from work tomorrow. He will probably have a card for me that he’ll pick up on his way home. Or not. But it is okay. He’s also just as likely to bring me a squishy teddy-bear. Either way, I guess I don’t really mind if (as he puts it) he doesn't succumb to the commercialization of a day he never much liked anyway. He already is my Valentine. I think I’ll keep him.