Six Word Saturday ~ Valentine’s Day. Ugh. Let’s Skip It.

Valentine’s Day is not my favorite holiday in case you didn’t get that from my six word title. It hasn’t always been this way and it isn’t this way just since I became permanently single, although that certainly has a lot to do with it. I have several reasons for not liking this holiday. Here is the story of one of them:

My first Valentine’s Day in my first relationship took place when I was married, seventeen, and pregnant. I couldn’t keep anything down, including the pills they gave me for morning sickness.

My husband, Tom, felt so bad for me he bought me a bottle of Sprite for a Valentine’s gift and left it in the refrigerator with the sweetest card while he went off to work.

I was so touched by that card that he did the same thing every year for the next seventeen years of our marriage. I was always okay with that because to me, our anniversary, and mother’s day were much more important dates to celebrate; and he never missed a one.

When our youngest was barely six months old and our two older children were 15 and 13 I caught him cheating on me. This was not the first time, as I later admitted, but the first time I had him dead to rights.

A few weeks later Valentine’s Day rolled around I truly hoped he would see the error of his ways and choose his family, his home, his obligations…and of course me, over his “new found love”. He dropped by to present me with a card and I had high hopes. The card read “I hope we can be friends”.

I tore it into pieces and threw it at him.

Valentine’s Day. Ugh.