My love/hate relationship with Valentine's Day

It's with much surprise that I find myself looking forward to Valentine's Day this year. I'm going to come right out and say it: I don't like Valentine's Day and I'm not sure it likes me. My dear Husband has done his best to change this in the almost twelve years we've been together bad feelings remain between me and Valentine's Day. 


It's certainly not for lack of love, but instead due to a terrible string of bad luck around the Holiday starting nearly 20 years ago in my Junior year of high school. I'd met a boy that I really liked from a town about an hour away. He invited me to his Valentine's dance and I drove to visit for the weekend, carrying with me the joy and eagerness young love brings. To make a long story short he virtually ignored me, didn't dance a single song with me which left me a wallflower at a strange school and then broke up with me in his car in the pouring rain in front of his house.I had no choice but to stay the night at that hour and I tried to hold my tears back until I could flee the next morning. 


I woke up only to discover his parents expected me to go to Mass with them before I left where I watched him spend the service flirting with another girl. Ouch. But that's not all.   My clutch went out going back over the pass on the way home and it started to snow. I drove home at 20 miles per hour with the flakes blanketing the road. And then, when I got home, I learned my mom had just been taken to the hospital due to a bad case of mono. Pretty awful, huh?


That was just the first of the bad luck. Over the years I was dumped on or around Valentine's day twice more, put a dog to sleep on Valentine's Day and had another pass away unexpectedly the week before. One year I had the entire cooling system go out on my car leaving me with a $1200 bill. 


A classic Valentine's Day was the year I glued my eye shut with nail glue. I was in college and coordinating Model United Nations. I had to drive our group to a conference in Seattle and was down because my Dad and Step Mom had decided to elope that weekend and I had no way to get out attending to make the ceremony since I was the only member who could drive the college van. I assumed missing the wedding was my bad luck but after I glued on a nail that had come lose and instinctively rubbed my still sleepy eyes I quickly realized my eye wouldn't open. The glue had still been wet. 


Panic ensued and I grabbed an entire bottle of baby oil dumping it onto my lashes and hoping it would stop the adhesion. In the end I did manage to get my eyelid detached from my bottom lashes although I lost quite a few and spent the weekend with red, puffy skin around my eye and a fair amount of pain. If you look closely I still have a small section of lashes that won't grow back as a result of that fiasco. And I missed the wedding, something I regret to this very day.


I could provide more examples but I imagine you've gotten the idea. My Hubby has tried to remedy my ill will. He's surprised me with flowers including once writing I love you with roses on my bed, kiss kiss bears from Hallmark, and we even spent a romantic weekend once at Shangri La Resort on Grand Lake in Oklahoma before kids. But the resentment remains particularly when things still go wrong from time to time.


So why am I looking forward to it this year? Because I'll see my name in print for the first time in the WG2E Viva La Valentine anthology. It's ironic that something I've dreamed of for so long, seeing one of my stories in print, is Valentine themed and timed for release with Valentine's Day. Maybe if the folks at WG2E had known my history they would have put me in the Summer edition, or maybe not as my story fits perfectly with Valentine's Day. 


The cover was released this past week and the upload to all platforms may begin as soon as this weekend. The cover was designed by the awesome author and co-founder of the WG2E, D.D. Scott. Without further ado I present to you the WG2E All-For-Indies Anthologies Viva La Valentine Edition:

I've resolved this year to make my own luck and maybe this is part of me doing that, making my debut as a published author at the time of year I normally try to hide in bed and avoid. It's also the start of a series featuring Cupid, Cherubs and the Goddess of love herself, Venus - all creatures intertwined with Valentine's Day which I suppose is quite brave of me given my feelings about the holiday. Wish me luck? ;-)


Thanks for following!

Melanie


11:31 PM