Happy Valentine’s Day!

When it comes to Valentine’s Day, you either love it or you’re a hater.

Me? I’m all about romance. I’m a flannel-covered marshmallow. It’s true.

I figure if there’s a day on the calendar earmarked for love, why not take advantage of it?

Sometimes W gets annoyed. “I thought we weren’t going to exchange this year,” she says.

I can’t help myself.

All my life as a person obsessed with romance, I thought I wanted to be swept off my feet with long-stem red roses, heart-shaped boxes of chocolates, surprise picnics in the park, poems written just for me.

As it turns out, I like being the one that does the sweeping. Who knew.

“She should let you be the man,” a friend of ours said.

I know what you’re thinking. We’re lesbians. We’re both women.

But I enjoy acting like an old-timey gentleman, holding open doors, carrying the heavy packages, sending the flowers and buying the chocolate.

Like the bumper sticker says: Chivalry isn’t dead. She’s a butch.

I sent W Valentine’s Day flowers last week. I’m all about Bouqs these days. If you buy flowers for your girl, do yourself a favor and check them out.

Her favorite color is purple.

Today, she got breakfast in bed. And a little basket I made for her with candy, lottery tickets and bottles of cherry soda called Cheer Wine. Cheers!

Check out these cute pillowcases I found on Etsy.

We’ll have to trade our pillows back and forth. Even a butch can be a little spoon sometimes.

At the end of the day, maybe I’ll score a few extra kisses.

It’s good to be butch.

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone!

* * *

What are your Valentine’s Day traditions?

 

Getting ready for Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is almost here.

I am a romantic at heart.  I am like Elizabeth Barrett Browning in flannel.

I am a traditionalist.  I am like the Rick Santorum  of gift giving.  Roses.  Chocolates.  One of those fancy greeting cards with the word “Wife” embossed in gold and sprawled across the front in cursive letters.  Maybe a poem or a special note if the muse is present.

I am a planner.  I am like a survivalist when it comes to gifts.  I look for little gifts and trinkets throughout the year.  Things I think W or the kids might like.  I buy them and place them in my gift stash located in the basket on the bottom shelf of my closet.

Shhh …

I am sneaky.  I am like Sylvester the cat trying to catch that poor old canary.  If W and I are out shopping and she points out something she likes, I make a mental note.  I’ll go back when she’s not with me, buy the item and save it for later.

The first Valentine’s Day that W and I were together, I gave her a big basket filled with books, CDs, DVDs, candy, coffee …  It was like she had won one of those basket raffles.  Or a gift horse had just thrown up all over my apartment.  I was in full-on wooing mode.

But this Valentine’s Day, I won’t be pulling out all the stops.  We have all three kids.  And W has been in a funk.  I’m pretty sure she won’t be up for a full-on Valentine’s day celebration.

And that’s ok.

Will you go see Kinky Boots with me?

We are at that point in our relationship where we celebrate occasions in a clump.  We are going to New York City at the end of March to see Kinky Boots on Broadway, and that will be our Christmas/Valentine’s Day/my birthday celebration all rolled into one.  We keep the fires of romance burning with these little getaways once or twice a year.  It’s like injecting our relationship with a shot of testosterone but without the facial hair.

On Valentine’s Day, I will give the kids and W candy from a little chocolate shop down the street.  I like to support our local businesses.  Two of the kids like these thin patties of caramel covered in milk chocolate.  The other one prefers dark chocolate-covered cherries.  W loves their milk chocolate salted caramels.  I’ll hand out a few other surprises and call it a day.

Our relationship is solid, so there’s no need to buy or persuade or prove with gifts.

I have tried to provide W with a soft place to fall while she sorts things out.

Patience is quiet.

So is love.

Those are the gifts I offer this year.

Me and W k-i-s-s-i-n-g in a giant heart

With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, this week I thought I’d share some snapshots from Middle-age butch and W, the early years.  We were young — well, younger than we are now — and in love.  Some things never change.

I remember one date that took place at the Franklin Institute, a cool, hands-on, interactive science museum in Philadelphia.  We had the kids with us, and spent the day playing and flirting and darting into dark hallways to steal a kiss or two.

Lub dub, lub dub.

We held hands as we walked through the giant, anatomically correct heart and kissed at the tippy top.

It was all innocent fun, like we were schoolgirls, even though school had let out decades ago.

It’s the day that we formally announced to the boys that we were girlfriends.  It was official.

I don’t remember what I was wearing or what W was wearing.  I just remember being in love and feeling excited about the future.  Who knew what could happen?  On that day, anything seemed possible.

Even walking hand-in-hand through a ginormous heart.

Love and flying monkeys

Originally, this was going to be a post about Valentine’s Day.  Something along the lines of “Middle-age butch’s guide to wooing your gal in three easy steps” or maybe “What to buy your butch on the most romantic day of the year.”

For those of you keeping score at home, I’m pro Valentine’s Day.  I look at it as an opportunity to go that extra mile and show that special someone that you really do care.  Besides, I’m a hopeless romantic — butch on the outside/soft and mushy on the inside — so Valentine’s Day is a great excuse for me to show off my romantic chops.

Usually, I’ll send W flowers at work.  Cook a nice Italian dinner at home and serve a special dessert.  A typical gift would be a “to-my-wife” card, a box of chocolates from a local candy shop and something small like a book or a CD.  If inspiration strikes, I might write her a poem or a love note.  Or gift her with a coupon for an oil massage later that evening capped off by, well, I’m sure you get the picture.

This year, Valentine’s Day will be subdued because W’s beloved grandmother passed away yesterday evening .

As I laid beside W in bed this morning trying to support and console her, I thought that this is what love is all about.

It’s not long-stem roses or $6.99 Hallmark cards decorated with ribbons and glitter.  It’s not a box of fancy chocolates or a pair of boxers covered in arrow-pierced hearts.  It’s not giant stuffed animals or plastic pink handcuffs or even the score to La Boheme or a book of poems by Pablo Neruda.

It’s wrapping your arms around your lover when she weeps and asking her if she’s ok a thousand times, even though you know that she isn’t.  It’s holding her hand as she falls asleep and letting her sleep with the TV on because she doesn’t want to wake up and be engulfed in silence.

It’s making a joke about buying Kleenex in bulk just so you can see a smile cross her face for a half a second.

It’s cooking her macaroni and cheese in the blue box because she asks for it in that small, quiet voice and bringing her freeze pops in her favorite flavors and diet Cokes because it’s all that you can think of to do.

It’s letting her know that you’re here if she needs you, if she needs anything, and then giving her space.

It’s being there for her, even when you’re not right next to her, and telling her that everything will be ok.  That we’ll get through this, this next hurdle, together and knowing deep down that it’s true.

When it comes to the un-Hallmark version of love, I often quote Melissa Etheridge (what card-carrying lesbian doesn’t?), especially this line from “Like the Way I Do:”

“You found out to love me you have to climb some fences.”

So true.  In my case, the fences W climbs aren’t white picket.  They’re 12-foot barbed wire fences guarded by flying monkeys.  I can be a bastard to live with.

And that’s the thing about love.  It’s not all roses, and candy hearts and teddy bears.  That’s only the fun part of it.  The idea of love.  Love on the surface.

Deep down love is climbing a 12-foot barbed wire fence and swatting away winged primates to make your way into someone’s heart or to let her know that you’re still there, you always were.  To say, “hey, I love you, you moron, can’t you see that I’ve climbed all the way up here and cut off most of my pointer finger at the first knuckle just to show you that.”

Real love is saying something, anything when you don’t know what to say.  It’s trying and failing and then trying again.

It’s helping your lover grieve a loss when you’re not at all sure how to go about doing that.

It’s being there though, and going through it together.