Well look at that. This year’s Heart Day lands on a Friday, which just so happens to be Little Love Story Day. How convenient! Today’s Little Love Story is about Heart Days, present, past and future.
February 14, 2009 was our first Valentine’s Day together. We had been dating for 8 months and although we hadn’t told each other, we were pretty positive that we would be one another’s Valentines for many years to come. It was a Saturday and I had to work until 6pm, so Jacob went to Cheesecake Factory at 4pm and got a buzzer. When I got off work I curled my hair, put a big bow in it, and met him at his house. We had fun that night, talking and laughing and being in love without saying it.
In 2010 we were engaged. We spent our only Valentine’s Day as an engaged couple making chocolate chip, heart-shaped pancakes and watching the Winter Olympics. We cherished the moments while also looking forward to many married Valentine’s Days ahead.
2011 was our first married Valentine’s Day. I woke up and Jacob was gone, so I started making breakfast. Mini coffee cakes it was! While I waited for the coffee cakes to cook, I searched my fabric drawer for a red or pink bow. Instead, I found a small piece of checkered, red fabric. It would make a perfect Valentine’s Day bandana for our 3.5 pound puppy. When Jacob returned he had 2 gifts: a bouquet of daisies for me and a little red ball for the tiniest Molly Mae. I loved the daisies, but the gift for Molly Mae melted my heart. We spent the morning in our 500 square foot garage home, eating coffee cake off of TV trays because we didn’t have a kitchen table. It was kind of the best.
For Valentine’s Day 2012, I had big plans. We had planned to go to Europe that Spring but scheduling and finances just weren’t making it possible. So, I printed out fake airline tickets and made an itinerary for our “Europe” trip. The first stop would be “France”. We would go to a little Parisan cafe for breakfast and pretend we were sitting on the patio of a real cafe on a cobblestoned street corner of Paris. Then we’d visit “Ireland”, the green rolling hills near our San Elijo Hills home where we would take our film camera and shoot photos at sunset. The last stop was “Italy” where we would have dinner at one of our favorite Italian restaurants, Old Venice. With white table cloths, white furniture, and small candles filling the restaurant, we would have a true dinner in Venice. The only problem was that on Valentine’s Day, we were recovering from food poisoning, so even our fake Europe trip was canceled. I wrote a blog post about my disappointment, and then realized how blessed I truly was to have him in my life.
Last year we spent it in Oklahoma. Instead of a trendy, romantic restaurant in Downtown San Diego, we went to Chilis. Instead of a walk under the stars on the beach in Del Mar, we went bowling. Instead of snuggling on our couch and falling asleep watching a movie, we tiptoed through the house so we wouldn’t wake Grandma and Grandpa and slept in a room filled with creepy dolls. The funny thing is that I wouldn’t have changed a moment of it. I had my Jakey and he had me. I was (am) so thankful for that.
I realized that we’ve never spent a Valentine’s Day in the same place. First it was Point Loma, then it was the apartment complex where I worked, then it was our first place in Kensington, then it was our Townhouse in San Elijo Hills, then Oklahoma. This year, yet again, will be spent in a different place, in a different way. This will be our first Valentine’s Day in Carlsbad. We won’t be going out for a fancy dinner. We won’t be going on a big adventure. We will be snuggled on the couch, with a homemade meal, watching a movie. We will be wearing our jammies and smiles as we thank one another for choosing this life… this love. We will be thanking God for blessing us with one another.
For those of you who have a love to share this Valentine’s Day with, remember to cherish these moments. Even if the food is mediocre, your hair won’t cooperate, or you’re both stressed about parking, remember to be thankful for another Valentine’s Day with the one you love, for there are some who are spending their first (or 50th) Valentine’s Day alone. And if today, you are alone, remember that there is a God who loves you and desires a relationship with you. We say to all of you, Happy Heart Day.
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” 1 John 3:1
From our first Valentine’s Day together in 2009.
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