Virgin Records - Hollywood, CA - 2006

This past week was the first time I thought of Valentine’s Day as an ordinary day. Like every other Wednesday, I went to work and physical therapy and didn’t even think about the fact that the world expected your life to be perfect and wrapped up in a cute heart shaped box tied with a red ribbon.

Instead it was the first time I thought about how love comes in all different shapes and sizes and very rarely is it perfect or wrapped up in a cute heart shaped box tied with a red ribbon. And really the commercialized ideal love doesn’t fit me as well as the different shaped love.

It was the first time I heard about teenage love and first kisses and remembered how strange and wonderful all those feelings are the very first time you experience them in life. Feelings you relive when a man tells you he loves you for the first time.

It was the first time someone gave me a self-help book as a Valentine’s Day gift. Better Single than Sorry was the message they gave. It was the first time I ever felt that a self-help book was actually an insult. (People always feel like they’re fixing you by buying you self help books and since my divorce I’ve been given quite a few). It was the first time I wondered why someone would give me a self-help book.

It was the first time that I didn’t let Valentine’s Day define my life in any way.