Developments with Alec

       What followed with Alec was month after month of passion, friendship, and exploring what we both wanted from life, and our relationship flourished.  We took every opportunity to be together, phoned each other daily or more often.  Alec called me all kinds of endearing names I wasn’t used to: Sweetheart, Beautiful, My Love, simple little things, but to me, they were a novelty that I soaked in like a purring kitten.

“I adore you.  I need to feel and taste you.  I worship you.  When we are apart, I am hurting.” I was counting the days till we met again.

“Four and a half,” I once said when he called on a Monday morning.

“93 hours, to be precise,” Alec replied.  Longing is such a delicious need when you have someone who is longing back.

We had wonderful times together in different places.  Christmas and New Year’s Eve together in Dublin and a trip to Rome for my birthday, which was so memorable that it took away the sting of getting older.  Alec was the most intuitive and considerate man I’d ever met, and I didn’t exaggerate when I told Chuck that Alec was the best lover.  I couldn’t find any snag about him except that dispensable cash seemed to be a rare commodity.

A niggling thought kept creeping out of the woodwork and showing its nasty head.  Did it matter that we needed to look for the absolute cheapest flights and best deals and that we didn’t go to expensive restaurants? I had a good-looking, loving man on my arm.  Did it matter that his Christmas present looked somewhat cheap? I had hankered for a certain watch, and he gave me a cheap imitation.  On the other hand, he sent me wonderful roses on a regular basis so that the local flower shop deliveryman greeted me like an old friend when I opened the door.  Did it matter that he didn’t buy any tiny Christmas present for my children? I suspected he didn’t expect them to give him any in return.  Did it matter that he didn’t own a monkey suit for our New Year’s Eve ball, but had to rent one? Wasn’t it most important that he worshipped me?

 

Valentine’s Day, synonymous with love and romance, is once again bombarding us with all things red and pink remotely associated with amore and desire. Sandwiched between Christmas and St. Patrick’s Day, it is one of the most commercialized days of the year. A frenzy that takes hold of the country every year leading up to the 14^th of February:  from cards to flowers, teddy bears to underwear, chocolates to jewelry, and not to mention red balloons labeled, “For the one I love this Valentine’s.” And now “Love locks” or Valentine padlocks started cropping up in the most romantic cities of Europe like in Paris or Rome. This is how it works: Lovers have their names engraved in a padlock, lock it to some bridge, monument or fence and throw away the key. Ah…tied together forever. Ain’t that sweet?
So far I haven't heard objections to this new trend from environmentalists. Surely tons of discarded metal keys thrown into rivers present some damage to the environment? How about the clean up? Are these love toys here to stay?

Inventive marketers sell this novelty gimmick as ‘a unique twist on a centuries old tradition that symbolizes the locking of your life and love’. A variation on tying the knot? Well, a ring never was a guarantee for eternal love and romance anyways. Divorce statistics are proof for that. An old fashioned locket with a locke of hair or picture  of the beloved ─ now that’s what I would call a romantic token of oneness.

"Does anybody waste a thought about those among us that don’t have a beloved? A love of their life? Not even a temporary one?  What about those who never even had a love of any kind? Or about those who have lost one?

When I grew up in Germany, I never even knew that this heavenly day existed. I can’t say when it reached the German shores; probably in those years when I was already married and had moved to Ireland. I received my first Valentine’s card at 35 from an elderly gentleman who picked up his grandchildren from the same school that my kids frequented. It read “To the one I am dreaming about.”

Mortified, yet tickled pink, I took it home to my husband who was working on the farmyard.  He was aghast.  I think that’s when he first learned about the existence of Valentine’s Day.

“If you ask me, it’s all one big commercial hype over nothing,” he called down from his tractor, scratching his head.  And ever the lyrical poet, he added, “Just another day for selling things, what with Christmas being over and Easter far away.  Just like the fad of Mother’s Day.”

With that clarified, he put his woolly cap back on and returned to his task at hand,  cleaning up the manure on the yard.  Needless to say, I never got a Valentine’s card from him after that." (Excerpt from: Next Time Lucky").

I hate to admit that now many years, many admirers and many Valentine cards later, I agree with my now ‘Ex’. The last straw proving the commercialism of V-Day are the ravioli on sale at this time of the year. Yes, you guessed it. Heart-shaped and red.               d.
The frenzy of Valentine’s Day may be a necessary boost to the economy but also a time in a single’s life that many would happily skip over unmarked.
Be warned - these padlocks may be coming to a bridge near you...