Cup O’ Joe: How do you say ‘I love you?’

How does one go about expressing their love and devotion to another? It’s a popular topic this time of year as Tuesday marked St. Valentine’s Day. For many, Valentine’s Day is synonymous with buying cards, chocolates or flowers as a token gesture of one’s undying love and affection for another individual.
    One of my good friends once told me he thought Valentine’s Day was a holiday created by greeting card companies to guilt people into purchasing cards. Actually, the holiday used to involve hand-made tokens of affection dating back to the Middle Ages, but I understood his point.
Why do we need to have just one day during the year to express our love and devotion to our significant other? Shouldn’t we do this every day?
Here at the Houlton Pioneer Times’ office, I have taken a fair bit of grief for my approach to Valentine’s Day. I no longer buy a mushy, gushy valentine card to give to my wife. Does this mean I love my wife any less? Of course not.
We have a mutual understanding that neither of us wastes money buying greeting cards for one another for any of the holidays (Valentine’s Day, Christmas, birthdays). Considering the price of greeting cards can run $5 (or more), it is hard to get too excited about buying a card.
I’m fortunate in that my wife and I have a standing agreement. We don’t spend our money buying cards for each other anymore. Instead, we use that money for a nice dinner out, without the kids.
Does it take pressure off not having to look for a greeting card? You bet. Does it mean I care more if I give someone a card? Not really. It’s actually a bit of a cop-out buying a greeting card instead of simply saying what you feel.
Back when we both used to buy cards for one another, the search for the perfect card never materialized. I could spend hours standing at a rack, reading one cheesy poem after another. Occasionally, I would find a decent card, but then as second nature, I would immediately turn it over to see how much money it costs. It’s no different if someone gives me a card. I read it and have to fight the urge to turn it over to see how much money they spent on it. I bet a lot of people do the same thing.
A reader suggested to me last year, that I should surprise my wife with a card. It can be argued that a collection of cards (or other lover letters for that matter) can be organized into a scrapbook to look back upon later in life, especially in the unfortunate event of a partner’s death.
I mentioned this to my wife (which kind of took the whole surprise element out of it), and asked her for thoughts on the subject. Would she keep a collection of cards I give to her? Her response was, “I don’t know.”
My wife is not much of a saver, while I’m the one who tries to keep practically everything. When I take the recycling down to the basement, I am always shocked to see what is being tossed out. School projects and sheets upon sheets of pictures colored by our children.
“Don’t you want to keep this?” I’ll ask.
“We can’t keep everything,” is the typical response.
Perhaps it is a generational thing. There used to be a time when one got excited to receive card or letter in the mail. My parents still send birthday cards, in addition to Valentines, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, Halloween and Christmas cards to our children. Sometimes, one of the cards will be held on to for them to use as a bookmarker.
I’ve told my mother that she doesn’t need to keep doing this, but for her, I think, she enjoys the search for the card almost as much as giving the card.
Children today are more plugged in to the online world than ever before with social media sites. Our 5-year-old once asked me what her e-mail address was. When I told her she didn’t have one, she said matter of factly, “Well how do I get my mail then?” I’m not sure what type of mail she thinks she should be getting, but we will probably try to put that one off as long as possible.
Joseph Cyr is a staff writer for the Houlton Pioneer Times. He can be reached at pioneertimes@nepublish.com or 532-2281.