A Day for Love

I've been trying to write something optimistic, something inspirational about love being more than chocolates and roses and blah blah blah, and it's just not coming out. Oh, don't get me wrong! I think love is about a lot more than the silly froufrous the People in Charge of Sucking our Wallets Dry have made us believe are required for romance. But even though I believe it, I can't quite get myself to feel upbeat today. That said, yesterday was, ironically, one of my better Valentine's Days to date for a simple reason: Mark and I are finally looking at each other, all expectations of what we "should" be stripped away. We are finally allowing ourselves and each other to be who we actually are.

We spent the morning going up to OHSU for a routine visit. We were encouraged to hear that after being so severely anemic, his iron stores have reached capacity. Everything looks fine. Exercise more. Keep pulling back on the narcotics. Keep on keeping on ...

We stopped at a motorcycle dealership on the way home. Mark is planning on using some of the life insurance money his dad left him to buy a motorcycle this summer. (We can't access the money until then.) He is beyond excited about it. He wanted me to show him which bikes I like. I looked around, lost. "Um, the red ones?"

We went out to a romantic lunch on our way home -- rodeo cheeseburgers off of the dollar menu at Burger King.

About the time Alex got out of school, loaded down with Valentine candy, Mark's pain started to kick in. We waited three hours, but it was not getting any better, so after dinner, I took him to the hospital. I left the boys with Kaitlyn, promising that I would be right back, but when I got there, the doc said they were only going to give him a couple of things and then let him go so I stayed -- for three hours. They did manage, however, to get things to a manageable point without narcotics so that Mark was coherent when we left.

I came home, checked my email and my beloved writer's forum (www.pw.org/speakeasy), looked over one of my own stories just for the heck of it, cleaned the kitchen, and went to bed, which I must say felt really good at that point.

Oh, by the way, I gave him a belt for Valentine's Day -- a leather belt with a skull and crossbones for a buckle. He loves it. Told me today that I'm getting better at this whole gift giving business. Yeah, well, I'm a slow learner, but I'm catching on.