Every year, about this time, I find that something strange happens to me. I'll start to feel bitter, self-conscious, and maybe even a little depressed for no reason at all. Is it just the C-term blues? Not quite. This feeling is a caused by a rather different form of stress.
The warning signs usually show up in December, usually a few days after Christmas. I remember exactly how it happened this time. I was at Super K-mart with my best friend at 2:00 am, and suddenly we saw the bright menace, hidden in the back corner of the store between automotive and the stationery department. The monster mocked us with its evil pinkness, as it had every year for the past several years, though for some reason it still sneaks up on us.
My best friend and I turn to each other with a look of simultaneous horror and surprise. All is silent for a moment, but the awkwardness is broken by that guy buffing the floor with a Zamboni. I hear myself say "Did you just see what I thought I just saw?" and she replies with a look of acknowledgement and says "Let's go." So we head back towards the comforting glow of the electronics section, a narrow escape. Flipping through the cheap CD's I wonder "What has happened? How could a brief glance of some silly heart display put me on edge? Where did this all come from?"
I remembered once upon a time, I would go to the store with my mom, and we'd pick out all kinds of lace doilies, foil hearts, construction paper, glitter - I often wondered why she made such a big deal out of insisting we make our own cards when I would've been easily satisfied with a cheap, boxed set of preprinted cards, featuring popular cartoon characters. Until we got home that is... the box of supplies was suddenly transformed into magical items, and I couldn't wait to get started. Deep down, I knew that most of my classmates wouldn't appreciate the time and effort I'd put into making the cards, but sitting there putting Valentines together was still fun anyway. Sort of a strange duality - maybe that's why the seemingly innocent pink hearts and chubby cherubs still haunt this wandering soul.
Behind the frilly sentimentality lies a demon waiting to pounce on the unaware. Red is the color of hearts, but it is also the color of blood, and pink is (poetically) the color of flesh. As I got older, I began to notice more casualties of February the 14th and began to learn the signs of the dreaded day.
In high school, one could sense the tension building up weeks in advance, and then out of nowhere, my seemingly mild classmates, turned into a pack of wild dogs, fighting over the contents of chocolate boxes or "who got the bigger flower arrangement," and even more popular - "whose delivery of an overpriced flower arrangement caused a more significant disruption during class". A good friend of mine even wrote an editorial cartoon about it one year.
So now I'm in college, and now all I can see is the bloodshed, but now that my peers are older, they can see it too. Yet some still make sacrifices to the god of Valentine. Thoughtless gifts for meaningless relationships, hiding behind the sweet innocence of childlike cupids and little red hearts. But this transparent disguise cannot hide the infidelity (and yes, that means you too, Mr. President!), the dysfunction, the pain, and the false pretense of so many "romantic" relationships today.
Why should it matter if you spent three months worth of paychecks to buy an expensive rock (or other expensive gift for those of us with "college" budgets...) if you can't express your love the other 364 days of the year? Why should people without significant others be made to feel inferior for a day?
"True Love" doesn't even seem to be socially acceptable anymore. It's almost a contradiction in terms these days. So, whatever happened to real, honest, trusting, caring love? Does it still exist somewhere, or is it just one of those goofy things that you're supposed to outgrow, like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy?
No wonder just looking at a store display could make us cringe. But once we walked away that night, I knew I wasn't going to be bitter this year. The monster wouldn't win. A week later, I went back to Super K and walked back down that aisle myself (no pun intended) just to see what was there. There were still some scary sights, like those sickly stuffed animals holding hearts - especially the gorillas with that strange expression. But other than that, I only saw a bunch of... stuff. A bunch of frilly red and pink stuff. Big deal. I walked away and finished my shopping fearlessly, wondering how many others would be able to do the same.