2/15/21 Dear Valentine’s Day,
Where do I begin? First, I hope it was a good run for you this year and that you can enjoy some time relaxing for the next several months. I have found myself wondering when we first met. I remember seeing a card in a photo album that my maternal grandmother sent me. It came with a lollipop whose stick my mother saved with the card. I feel like I remember my mother speaking with you on the phone the day we received the card and I ate said lollipop, though that may have been a memory from my mother sharing a story, but I like thinking you and your cupid magic did allow me to remember it. My grandmother called my mom her Valentine Baby and I enjoy feeling some of that love being my mother’s baby period. I didn’t ever meet my maternal grandmother in real life as the day I met my mother’s side of the family I was two and it was for said grandmother’s funeral. I think I would have liked her, in all the stories she is full of gumption.
I did meet you and continue to meet you every year. I remember loving building a valentine box for the classroom card exchange and the anxiety of possibly not receiving any valentines. I remember carefully and studiously selecting which card to sign for every single classmate. I remember the angst for having my parents spend money and further angst for their not being able to buy the fancy ones. It was rough. Yet, my father always included me in the Valentine exchange with the family and his doing so solidified a love for carnation that has claimed almost all my sense memory storage for flowers. I am serious, it is to the point if I do not receive or see carnations on Valentine’s day then I feel a little empty. This feeling is more present and more prominent than not having a partner or just plain loneliness.
One year, or maybe it was meant to be an annual thing and the stress of it made it only one year, my mother (have no idea if my father was involved or even informed) decided that in addition to our birthday parties we could pick one other holiday to host a party. I don’t remember picking you and feel that it is entirely possible that I was given you by default (and sexism) because I was the only girl. A slight aside, I vaguely remember two of my brothers picking Halloween but have no memory as to what holiday my other two brothers chose. Also, I cannot seem to set my mind on other holidays to throw a kid’s party for, maybe 4th of July, Labor Day, Arbor Day? Really? Anyway, my other party holiday was you and I took that shit seriously for sure. I took days to finalize the guest list, I designed a new dress for my mother to make for the party, I made the decorations with as much tissue paper as I was allowed. Read- not much. I designed a game with paper plates and tissue tassels, I have no idea the premise or how to play but I made everyone play it. I think there is even a photo of this party and it is me playing this game.
Despite my not being able to pinpoint exactly when we met, other than you simply always being in my consciousness, I can tell you when we absolutely solidified our relationship. Valentine’s Day (and season) 1983. I was in the sixth grade with two best friends who took me in as a third and a pen pal all the way over in Massachusetts. We were obsessed with becoming women. One of my friends was even told that as a congratulations when it was revealed at the dinner table when I was a guest, that she had started her period. Her stepfather announced, “I hear you are a woman now.” Why does that sound so creepy now? Especially when I wanted that so much back then. She got it and our other friend already had it and even my pen pal wrote as if it was old boring news. We’d had Sex Ed in school, had to have a permission slip to attend on menstruation day where they showed us slides of female anatomy and brilliantly bright red blood, so crimson, so akin in color to a third of the carnations my father would give me. (tucked in and standing out from the pink and white blooms)
Imagine my surprise when I awoke the morning of Valentine’s Day to find what I might call today some form of black sludge in my panties. It was disgusting but I figured it had to be my period, what else could it be? Maybe redheads bleed black blood? I cleaned up and got ready for school, nothing seemed to be leaking or overflowing my panties so I just dressed as usual and made a mental note to make plenty of trips to the bathroom. I proudly shred with my friends that I had started. How weird that it was like a competition and on some sort of scale of cool or acceptance. I hope that has changed over the years. As I went through the motions of the day, school, recess, the classroom party with my simple valentines, and home where I went to my room and allowed all the doubt and fear to surface. I don’t remember carnations being there, but my focus had shifted from you to what was collecting in my underwear.
I waited for my mom to get home, which seemed extra late, tried to get her alone, always an impossibility. So, I brought my earlier pair of underwear upstairs and sat on the kitchen table bench with one brother at the end of the table, another on the other bench and one more up at the stove. I waited through some conversations until my mom asked what was on my mind. I started to tell her but fear took over and I started to cry. My brothers expressed annoyance and impatience and my mom seemed to be aligning with them until I managed to share that I found this in my underwear and held out the sample. Everyone went quiet. My mom scooted closer and hugged me and confirmed that I had indeed started my period. I stated my concern that in all the photos in Sex Ed it was red and she confirmed that it will be, it just takes a little time, possibly a few cycles. She was very sweet, even my brothers who were confused were being sweet.
And then, just like that worry creased her forehead and washed over her face. I didn’t hear it but a bell went off in her head that I would need some products to help get me through. Remember the simple Valentines? Money was tight and we were a day before her paycheck. Yes, we knew the days the money arrived, it is how we grew up. She asked or my brothers also knew somehow- wouldn’t be surprising, it is how we grew up, paycheck to paycheck- for one by one they brought what they had in there change jars to the table. My brother Jeff offered to make the run to the store for what would become known in our household as “stuff.” (Shawn Marie needs “stuff” would be yelled periodically throughout the rest of my years at home) It was a sweet offer, the store would close soon and it was a decent hike, but they also had a Pac Man machine and surely one of the quarters could be spared for a game. And it was Valentine’s Day after all, gotta give in to our loves.
The next day I came home from school to find my bedroom covered with red pink and white products, Valentine Day’s candy- the kind I always wanted to include with my Valentine’s but it was too expensive- and balloons, and feminine products: deodorant, pads, face wash, etc. All of it in Valentine Day’s themed packaging, and I knew it had all been at least 50% off but I didn’t care, I never felt so loved and seen even if I didn’t understand everything that was displayed across my bed. Strawberry scented, feminine everything like I had never seen before in my life! For a Femme to grow up in an action packed fully loaded testosterone ruled masculine household, it felt deliciously naughty, as if the forbidden had found a way in, and I just sat on my bed and stared at it all, disbelieving it was mine and/or for me.
As the years in my life eclipsed there was not ever a year I didn’t celebrate you in some way. How could I not? Though it didn’t sink in right away, but the Valentine’s Day that I became a woman, was truly the spark of me claiming myself, loving myself, and owning my gender expression, and allowing my love to form and envelope and embrace all that felt natural to be there. Of course it is still a process and a journey, yet it started on your day, so I am thinking we are more than Day and Human, but I will let that reveal itself when it does. Not trying to rush anything. Meanwhile I will continue my gratitude for my mother and friends and brothers for being there and I will continue to celebrate you, Valentine’s Day, in any way I choose, every single year.
Sincerely,
SM
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