The Sheila Variations

It's that time of year again

The day of Romantic Love approaches. I'm going to re-post what I wrote last year. (One quick note: What a difference a year makes. I sound ANGRY about Valentine's Day in the post. I don't feel that way this year. I'm mellowing out in my old age or something.)

It's a story about the nicest Valentine's Day card I have ever received, to this day. It is called:

The Spitball Valentine

I despise Valentine's Day.

I despise it on multiple levels.

First of all - my temperament is not a romantic one, to begin with (although when I fall in love, I fall in love like a banshee). My temperament is more ironic, more cynical, and does not tolerate overt forms of sentimentality. This seems to be an Irish thing, frankly. (Think of the raucous partying that takes place at Irish wakes. I submit that this is a cultural mindset.) It's not the same thing as being uncomfortable with emotion, or keeping a stiff-upper-lip, or anything like that. I just, for whatever reason, feel very ITCHY when someone is showering me with romance, romance, romance. My entire psyche screams, as some poor man is proclaiming his devotion through the flickering candlelight: MAKE A JOKE. Where's the joke in this situation??

He says, "I love you..."

I say, "Man walks into a bar ... ba-dum-ching..."

So Valentine's Day goes up my ass. Reason #1.

Reason #2:

As a profoundly single person, an entire holiday devoted to couple-dom is supremely obnoxious. If I sound like a whiner, I can live with that.

I don't remember making a big deal out of Valentine's Day with my first boyfriend - and we were together long enough to go through 3 or 4 of them. Perhaps he picked up on my natural antipathy to sentiment and romanticism. I think. Or maybe I've blocked it out.

I am the type of girl who gives a photograph of her eyeball to her date on Valentine's Day. This does not bode well for gushy love-moments.

But I had this amazing flashback the other night (completely drug-induced - no, just kidding): I was looking through an old box of letters - stuff I have kept for, my God, over 20 years. Letters my little sisters wrote to me when I first moved away, stuff like that. Beautiful stuff I will always keep. I was weeding through a lot of it though, deciding to toss some of it.

At the bottom of this box was a tiny grungy crumpled up piece of construction paper. When I say tiny, I mean tiny. It could have been a spitball that I had saved for sentimental reasons ... (I know that spitballs contain much sentimentality for some ...) I didn't know what it was, so I opened it up.

And when I saw the message - written to me by an 11 year old boy - years and years and years ago - Jimmy Carter was president when this note was written ... I felt this rush of "time" - like having a perception, in reality, of the true CURVED nature of space. Looking at his penciled words to me, I suddenly felt not like this was a "memory" or anything that took place primarily in my brain - but I felt like I was propelled back in time. Instantaneously.

I cannot believe I kept this tiny spitball, but I did. It was a "Valentine". Written to me in the 6th grade.

Of course, in grade school, you go out and you buy Valentine's Day cards in bulk (2 good 2 be 4 forgotten...) - and maybe you sign a personal note to your friends, but all the cards were store-bought.

I was absolutely PASSIONATELY in love with a boy named Andrew Wright. I say both his names proudly. I have no idea where he is now. If he ever runs across himself, on this post, then now I can come clean:

I was 11 years old and I used to lie awake at night, in bed, ACHING with love for Andrew Wright.

(In 5th grade, as my love for him grew, there were times when he would get up to go put on his coat or whatever, and my friend Betsy and I would run over and kiss the seat of his chair.)

But that was from when I was in 5th grade, and still only a CHILD.

The love that bloomed in 6th grade was REAL love, I was convinced - it was torturous, deep, perfect. I didn't just like him because he was a cute kid, who had a nice way about him, and was really funny, and thought I was a good person to have on his baseball team. To me, he was the epitome of all that was GOOD and RIGHT in the world. I looked at him, 11 year old Andrew Wright, and saw the essence of kindness.

We grew up in the same neighborhood, and had been hanging around since we were little kids, we would go skating on the little hidden pond in the middle of the woods, and he would steal my hat, and I would chase him, and from such simple moments, true love is born.

But of course, it was all very unrequited. We were 11. Half of the fun was just being in love with someone. Nothing ever had to be DONE about it.

So anyway - there was this big Valentine's Day ceremony in our class. I am sure even then I hated the holiday.

Kids called up - cards passed out - everyone hovering over their mounds of cards - reading the messages - a-flutter with excitement and 6th grade romantic feelings ...

I had a pile of cards in front of me, and of course - immediately - I started searching for Andrew's.

By the time I got to the bottom of the pile, my heart had turned to lead, and I felt coldness enter my veins. He hadn't given me a card. There was no card from Andrew Wright in my pile. How could that be? How could he ... how could he ... how could he have not written me a card? After all that we had shared? After me chasing him on the hidden pond, trying to get my hat back?

I'm making fun of myself here, and that's not really fair - because things are very important to 11-year-olds, and their experiences are no less profound just because adults can look at them and say, "Oh, how cute ... look at how in love she is..."

I thought I might have to get up and leave. I felt this huge-ness rise up in me - a lump that hurt my throat - my eyes smarting ... You know that feeling? Something big coming? I'm also not a big one for freaking out in public ... I needed to get away and just be REALLY REALLY REALLY sad, away from my classmates. Andrew must never ever know how much I had hoped for a Valentine from him.

And then - suddenly - Andrew Wright, on his way somewhere else, walked by my desk and dropped what looked like a tiny spitball in front of me. He kept going, didn't look back.

Disbelieving - I opened it up - It was not a store-bought card. It was not a rubber-stamp Hallmark that he had just signed his name to. It was not generic.

It was a tiny piece of white construction paper, which he had clearly ripped off the corner of a larger sheet, and he had written his own message on it - in #2 pencil:

Sheila - You're a good kid. And a good storywriter. Andrew.

Isn't it so silly that I wrote that just now, and felt tears come to my eyes?

That Valentine's Day meant more to me than any store-bought card or little teddy bear or piece of candy ever would. I cherished it. Obviously, I cherished it enough that I still have it.

And - even though I was 11 - I knew, with my dawning women's intuition what it all meant:

-- He couldn't have just given me a little Hallmark Valentine. It wouldn't have been right. In his 11 year old heart, he knew we were closer than that.

-- He needed to express how he felt about me ... in a private way. It was not appropriate to have his Valentine handed out to me in the public class ceremony.

-- A generic note would have been inappropriate. He made the bold move to go personal. In looking back on it: I think, "Go, Andrew! Nice little risk you took there!"

And one last thing: the "and a good storywriter" kills me to this day.

Andrew Wright - if you ever end up reading this - if you ever Google yourself and trip upon this post - thank you for the nicest, and most romantic, Valentine's Day gift I have ever received in my life.

Posted by sheila