The Light of Day

2/14
KeithHandy posted in Your Soul on February 14th, 2007

My immediate supervisors apparently think my coworkers and I are kindergarten students.

This is not a bad thing, mind you. In fact, while most people today are either focusing all their energy on their significant others, or feeling incredibly alone and neglected, I spent the better part of the day remembering the TRUE MEANING of valentine’s day.

Well, no, actually I have no freaking idea what the true meaning of valentine’s day is.

But … I do think I have a better than vague idea of what love is, and I spent the better part of the day celebrating that. I did not once think about or care about whether anyone, including myself, had an opposite-sex partner. That’s just a reflection of one aspect of a person’s self-sustaining social framework. Some people have wives or husbands. Some are single mothers. Some are more attached to their parents than most people their age. Some have dogs. Some have cats. (Some have three mice in one cage, one high-strung mouse in another cage, and a free-range fifth mouse that visits them all in the night. We won’t name names.) Some are introverts, some are extroverts. Some have annoying neighbors. Some play guitar at coffee houses. Even the loneliest people in the world have some kind of relationship (even if it’s just a routine interaction with a cashier or security guard), and even the most social of people have some dark secret they don’t share with anyone.

Life is way more complex than “you’re sad if you’re alone” and “you’re happy if you’ve found your soulmate”.

So anyway, we decorated little paper bags in with hearts and whatnot to hang at our desks, so that we could go around and distribute valentines. Which means I had to stop and buy those silly packs of valentines that you probably haven’t seen since you were a kid. I couldn’t decide between Star Wars and Hello Kitty, so I picked them both. (Maybe subconsciously I was thinking “I want to poke your pussycat with my lightsabre”, but I digress.) Memories came flooding back. It was great fun challenging myself to pick which cards would go to which people, and which innocuous messages I wouldn’t mind having misinterpreted by which people. Every set has a certain percentage of cards that say “FRIEND” very prominently in the message. I laughed my ass off at this — this is definitely a “way out” for kids who are obligated to distribute the cards to anyone who might get the wrong idea. I had great fun (and got a lot of laughs) handing these off to people and proclaiming “I only like you as a friend.”

The absurdity of the uncomfortable social dynamic of children who may or may not have crushes on one another served as a great contrast for what was ultimately wonderful about today, which was that I had so many extras of these things that I wound up going around to other departments and spreading “love” where it was unexpected, with a spirit of humor. It’s hard to explain exactly what I mean by that, other than the fun and “inclusive” attitude I had. That’s just it — valentine’s day has come to be associated with exclusive love rather than inclusive love.

Making people laugh, smile, and even express gratitude for the unexpected. That’s what I did for 2/14.