The way you love me🥰
My hubby and I do not celebrate Valentines Day. We never have. It’s just another day of the week. We work. We cook. Kids go to school. Normal stuff happens because it’s just another day. We show each other love each and every day.
I’m pretty sure our aversion to Valentine’s Day stems from childhood traumas of constantly being the new kid, ignored and left out by kids in our classes. We grew up before the days of the bring-something-for-everyone era began. Nothing like an empty card box on February 14th to make a kid pretend they day doesn’t exist. Forever. Some things just stick with you, ya know?
We’ve never really felt a need for flowers and candy and special dinners on Valentines Day. He brings me flowers randomly because he knows they make me smile. He brings me Albanese gummy bears because he knows their my favorite (and I’m a gummy bear snob who’ll only eat that brand). He tells me daily how much he appreciates me because he knows how my love language works.
I run my hands across his back and hold his hands because physical touch is his love language. I snuggle up to him each night because it relieves his stress. I talk to him daily to make sure he knows I value his thoughts and feelings.
My kids know I love them tremendously every day as well. It’s in the handmade lunches for the middle schooler each morning. It’s in the kisses on the cheek before the high schooler leaves. It’s in the random, giggle inducing hugs I hand out freely. It’s in the stern life lessons, swift but fair punishments, and unyielding parental wisdoms we bestow.
You see, love looks different for everyone. I spent my childhood seeing it focused on showering that special someone with a bunch of stuff. Cards, candy, stuffed animals, dinner dates, and enough romantic smaltz to make your teeth rot. I never realized what it was supposed to truly look like.
Love looks like patient understanding when your kid has a bad day and insists on taking it out on you. Love looks like kindness despite someone’s best efforts to be cruel. Love looks like cheering on another persons successes. It looks like humble thanks for your own triumphs. It looks like honesty, even when it hurts. Love looks like forgiveness.
Love is fixing breakfast at four in the morning for a hubby on crutches but still needs to eat before work. Love is massaging your wife’s aching hands and wrists because she wrote 4,000 words with carpal tunnel riddled hands. Love is risking life and limb to climb in your kids loft bed to snuggle them after a bad day. Love is telling your teen hard truths about their expectations in life versus reality. Love is doing life with people you love and who love you.
Yeah, we don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day. We do celebrate our love for one another everyday. We do show our kids our love, probably more than they’d like, on a constant basis. We spread kindness like glitter and hope it sticks. Hopefully, we are an example of love that others can copy. Happy Monday😊
I love the way you love me🥰