I love Valentine's Day. Even though Jared and I got engaged on March 14 (pi day), we actually got engaged on Valentine's Day. Except it was sort of unintentional and the ring didn't come until March 14, so I guess it wasn't official. But hey, I'll tell you the story anyway because I don't think it's written down anywhere, and also it will keep me busy.
It was Valentine's Day of 2013. I was working as a florist at a flower shop, so naturally I was mega exhausted by the time the shop closed, and my feet were like, "Girrrrl, you ain't goin' nowhere tonight." Luckily I had anticipated this exhaustion weeks in advance, and so I was able to tell Jared, "For Valentine's Day I just want you to make me dinner and we'll watch a movie and I'll probably fall asleep during said movie."
When Jared came to pick me up from work, I walked like a zombie to his car. He opened my door for me, and in my seat were some chocolates, my favorite flower, and a festive balloon. Ya, he went all out. I smooched his face and gave him a stuffed red octopus that we named Christofeln and still take everywhere with us.
When we arrived at Jared's apartment in The Village, it smelled amazing (Jared's roommate had offered up his "masculine candle") and the last of the dinner Jared had prepared was cooking in the oven. We had a "5 course meal," which started out with saltine crackers with cheese on top (hors d'oeuvres, duh), then went to some roasted veggies, then grilled chicken , then baked sweet potatoes, and then some chocolate for dessert.
After dinner we popped in the movie The Princess Bride and settled onto the couch to watch the movie/cuddle and not pay attention to the movie. Every so often Jared's one roommate who was still at the apartment would cautiously walk into the kitchen to get a snack, and then hurry back to his room. He must've known this date was serious bidness. This was the first Valentine's Day that I had ever had an actual Valentine, and it was awesome. After the movie was over, we snogged during the end credits, and I'm sure we said some nice things to each other and were just generally the happiest people ever. After a few minutes, Jared looked at me and quietly asked, "Would you marry me?"And I nodded and said, "Yes" (and then made sure that "would" meant that this was tentative, not official). It was all very simple, but incredibly significant.
We'd talked about getting married several times before and both knew it was bound to happen, but I had a call to serve an LDS mission in New Hampshire, and I wasn't sure if I should go and pick up where we left off 18 months later, or if I should marry Jared and forego the mission. But on that Valentine's Day, I knew there was no way I could risk him being gone when I came back, and I think we were both a little shocked when I was able to give that concrete, without-a-doubt "yes." We immediately started discussing where and when we should get married (we chose our date around when Jared was scheduled to take the MCAT, so basically med school was already looming large and in charge over our lives), and I think we booked the Salt Lake LDS Temple like two days later or something.
And that is why Valentine's Day is my favorite. Now, just for kicks, let's compare that with our 2015 V-Day. I'm sure that an island paradise is the most ideal place to spend Love Day--if you're on vacation. Living and working and going to school on an island paradise presents a slightly different situation. We were able to enjoy a lovely Saturday morning biscuits-and-gravy breakfast together on the veranda before Jared had to plunge himself into the deep end of his studies. His teachers scheduled all his big tests to be this coming Monday, because they are evil.
Round about 5:30, we put a pause on school and work to make time for a date. There are very few good restaurants on this side of the island, and all of them were booked full of reservations made months ago by all the retired sail-boat couples. We had expected this, so we weren't too devastated when our date (as most of our dates do) turned into a grocery store run. We grabbed some steaks and caught the bakery next door just before they closed, claiming their last pieces of chocolate cake and cheesecake. We went home, made and ate our meal together (quickly!), then took our cake into our room to watch The Princess Bride. Although I was happy to have these few precious hours with Jared, he's never completely relaxed when there's studying to be done for an upcoming test (test scores make up 100% of med school grades), so I wasn't too surprised when he bolted after the end credits to cram in another hour or two of neurology.
But you know what? It really is ok. Island life is different. Holidays are way more chill here--it's not like there are Valentine's commercials and decorations popping up a month in advance. It's not like everyone's walking around in pink and red and girls are parading their flower bouquets around campus. It's more like, "Oh hey, tomorrow's a holiday. Let's celebrate it however we want to, and no one can tell us we're doing it wrong." And our own interpretation was perfect for us. There will be plenty of years in the future for extravagant holidays. For over-the-top decorations and unnecessarily pricey gifts. I love these simple years we're living. I definitely wouldn't want them for the rest of my life, but for now they provide the best kinds of memories. I hope you were all able to have the happiest Valentine's Day, no matter how simple.
Oh, and even though flowers were out of reach today, Jared got me some lovely tropical flora on Monday, and they're still going strong! High fives for tropical water-bottle arrangements.
