Why Valentine's Day Matters to Us

Most of my life, I have hated V-Day. I was single all of my life up until I met my hubs...never had a boy friend, not even an inkling of one. So I usually spent this fateful chocolatey day watching romantic movies with my dear friends Ben & Jerry. Then I started dating Matt and our first few Valentine's Day together were a little rocky. Mostly because I was PMSing and was a raging biz-natch and sent myself into adult tantrums (they're a thing...trust me) over the tiniest thing. So the actual day was usually a train wreck. But when we were dating, it was easy to have every day be Valentine's Day. We went to the same school and spent almost all of our free time together, so every day we had had ample time to tell each other and show each other how much we loved the other.

Baby Matt & Chelsea pre-dating

Fast forward to married life. Valentine's Day became kind of "hard" to celebrate. Our wedding anniversary was just 2 months before, and I had the mind set that our wedding day was more important to celebrate than some silly Hallmark day. So we became lazy about it. Mostly doing our usual routine, except with some tiny Valentine's Day flair. Our lackadaisical approach to this day of love got me thinking. We really shouldn't need a specific day, especially one fueled by such rampant consumerism, to remind ourselves to show each other how much we loved the other. But this year...we kinda do need the reminder. We are so incredibly busy...well Matt is so incredibly busy...that it's been tough to show each other how much we mean to each other. He has been attending grad school twice a week, has a new position with more responsibilities at work, and is volunteering as a hospital chaplain once a week. I don't have quite as much going on, but his busyness mixed with my somewhat busyness make it hard for us to be the lovey dovey couple we were when we were dating. We have gotten into quite the routine of laziness and sometimes don't realize that we haven't had an actual conversation the entire day until we go to bed at night. So this year, and maybe for a few more, we are using this holiday to remind each other why we love the other. We don't nearly do it as much as we should, so it's almost nice to have this reminder to slow down and love on each other a bit. Valentine's Day isn't a great day per se but in our busy lives if we need this day to remind each other to slow down and get back to being all lovey with the other then I will take it. 

Married Matt & Chelsea...older, wiser, and still crazy in love