Valentine's Day

yuki_onna wrote this rather eloquent piece as a defense of Valentine's Day, reposted from a previous essay.

In response to that ithiliana responded with this rebuttal in defense of those who are not so fond of the holiday.

Having read both, I find myself in agreement with ithiliana in so many ways. And the more I think of it, the more upset I am by this so called defense.

( My reasons for what I think. Snark and vitriol under the cut. )

Happy Valentine's Day

I usually don't re-post from Twitter, but in light of my last post and some of the anti-anti-Valentine's Day things I've seen, I felt I should (with some additions):

Happy Valentine's to all who's loves and lives are pissed on by card companies and jewelers. Who do not see reflections and affirmations of themselves in the lace and flowers and commercials and advertisements.

Happy Valentine's to those who need love, but not romance. Who need a warm meal and a friend, not a box of chocolates. Who need a home. Who need someone to love them as they are, not as society says they should be.

Happy Valentine's to the foster children who need homes opened up while their parents and families try to get through tough times, who need safe haven. Who need not to be claimed and re-purposed, but supported.

Happy Valentine's to those who have never been kissed, who wonder if anyone ever will.

Happy Valentine's to those who can't eat the chocolate or sniff the flowers because they are allergic, because society's symbols of love will make them sick.

Happy Valentine's to the diabetics who must learn to watch a world around them devouring foods that they themselves must restrict or sometimes completely abandon.

Happy Valentine's to those who's hearts are literally breaking because they can't afford the medicine to keep it healthy.

Happy Valentine's to the asexuals of the world, who are asked "what's wrong with you?", who may not even know there is a word, a place for them in the spectrum, who are given odd looks and told to "just get laid", who force themselves into relationships trying so hard to be normal.

Happy Valentine's to the lonely, to the forgotten. To those who are made to think their loneliness is their fault, and is some great blemish on their existence. Who ache to know why they must be left out of the courtship dances and mating rituals.

Happy Valentine's to the queer couples forced to celebrate secretly, who's marriages are not respected though they are as loving as any.

Happy Valentine's to the transwomen and the transmen and everyone in between and around that spectrum, those are discovering how to love the person they are, and how to find that love in others.

Happy Valentine's to the widows, to the divorcees, those leaving abusive spouses and broken relationships. To the women who secret themselves and their children away in the night for their own safety. To the widows and widowers left with memories and days that hurt more than others. To the people who must leave marriages that can no longer work, must admit that all their promises and hopes did not come to fruition.

Happy Valentine's to those who toil to harvest the flowers, the cacao, the diamonds that rich people fling at each other in their frenzy of consumeristic love, to those who struggle to feed their families, themselves such unromantic staples as rice or bread or clean water, who could not afford to buy the very things they produce.

Happy Valentine's to those who died so that Western women might wear diamond rings. To those who have died for gold, for silver, for gems, for jewelry, for greed.

Happy Valentine's to those who find their private little ceremonies trampled by the onslaught of our culture's insistence on one kind of love, one kind of expression, one kind of holiday.

Happy Valentine's to those who do not celebrate this holiday because it is not theirs and they want no part of it, to those who have holidays of their own, who have ways to express their love of each other, of community, of tradition, of history. You are beautiful, you are sacred.

Happy Valentine's to Haiti, to the people who have watched as Americans tried to take their children, as though their love for their families is insufficient because their country has been oppressed into poverty and destitution, making a natural disaster all that much more tragic in consequence.

Happy Valentine's to you all. On this day, I'll celebrate love by celebrating that you're worth loving as friends, family, and people. On this day, I will celebrate that it is not just the act of a cisgendered man and a cisgendered women copulating that matters - but that we human beings are most human when we care about others more than ourselves.

Happy Valentine's. I cannot send you cards or flowers or chocolates, I cannot give you all everything you need. But I can remember you. I can celebrate you. I can send you my love.