This time is different. I'm different.

I have always disliked Valentine's Day as a holiday. If you're single and not happy about it, it reminds you of it in a crappy way. If you are single and happy about it, people seem to give you more of the sympathetic side eye on a day like this (as if being single is a bad thing!). If you are in a relationship, but struggling, you feel it more intensely. If you are in a wonderful relationship, it makes you feel like you should be doing more on just this day. And let's be honest, the candy around this holiday just doesn't make it worth the splurge (Tweet me, really?).

But this year feels different. It feels like a gentle reminder to pull my head out of newborn land and be grateful for my marriage, for the love that is with me through the good and the bad. I never thought I would need a reminder to be grateful and appreciative - to celebrate us. Don't get me wrong, I am grateful and appreciative each day, but I can't say that I have made any time to "celebrate" us, our marriage, our story. Having a new baby is more consuming than I imagined it would be, especially when he has had a tough go of it. Now that he is feeling better, and we are starting to feel better, I have the room to miss "us".

And so today, I do not dislike this holiday. I am grateful for the reminder, for the excuse to do something a little special (I did say little, we still have a tiny nugget that has just a few needs throughout the day and night). I am also grateful for our newest little valentine. I look forward to the time when he gets excited to give and receive valentines. I look forward to it all, so incredibly, crazily happy to have him, to love him, to snuggle him, and to be his mom. He is pretty awesome.

So while I do get it - the dislike many have for what feels like such a commercialized holiday, I am also grateful for it, for the new perspective, for all of the love in my life, and for all of the intangible gifts that it brings. So use the day to celebrate you, your own "us", those you love, or simply the appreciation for candied hearts with affirming messages on them. After all, life really is about loving and being loved, which really does deserve it's own holiday.