Give me Valentine's! with a side of Valentine talk. Also, just celebrated five years with Devon.

[juushika]

Because if I'm going to post a meme, I might as well go all out and be a sheep proper. Plus, unlike some, I love Valentine's Day. Not for the abject commercialism—which I don't like, so I simply avoid—but because I like intentional outward expressions of love and affection, romantic or otherwise. Each year, Devon buys me mixed dark chocolate truffles from a local chocolatier, who designs their chocolates with the same care that I take eating them (truly, I've never had chocolates so good; I generally prefer my cocoa straight up, single origin, otherwise unflavored, but these are exquisite). This year, he's also providing some money for my next BPAL order. They're classy gifts, which is part of it, but it's also that they're gifts that I will love—if I'd love red and white confetti and dimestore chocolates, he'd buy me those. The gifts are out of love, in the effort to spoil, because it's nice to have an excuse to express love with joy and without apology, for the simple sake of indulgence.

I've been lucky—for the last seven years, and for one before that, I was dating someone or being actively pursued (such as they do in middle school!) by someone, so it's always been a good day for me: joyous, uplifting, uncomplicated. And I still love it. But then, if you had the chocolates that I do, you would too.

Which is a really long complicated way of saying: Send me virtual Valentines! If you want to, at least. I picked up the Valentinr mailbox from some journals I read. The service will hold and store sent Valentines, telling anyone that looks that the Valentines have been received, but keeping them secret for me until V-Day. Confessions of heartfelt desire welcome, and platonic love and liking are also acceptable. And feel free to steal, because I would love to share the joy.

Edit: Don't want to use Valentinr? Leave Valentines here! Or, indeed, anywhere on my journal. ^_^ chaos_current informed me that you have to sign up to use the service, which, while it doesn't demand anything more than a name and password, is still silly. So feel free to leave Valentines anywhere you wish, signed or anonymous, on any of my posts. And of course written Valentine's are always welcome—my ever-changing contact info is here.

On a sidenote, somewhat related: Devon and I just celebrated our five year anniversary, on January 31st to be exact. The day caught both of us by surprise, and we're so used to being long distance that we usually just combine our anniversary with Valentine's anyhow, but five years is still ain't shabby. My life may be on the rocks, but our relationship is stable and growing moreso every day, and I love him dearly. Things have been particularly good lately—I'm fond of saying that things with him are always good but never perfect, which has always been code for "there are still some issues we need to work on." And while I never expect perfection, we've been working on some of those issues, and it is a wonderful thing. In him I am blessed, and so proud to have been with him for so long.