seeing with your heart

Every Valentine's Day, all of the fuss and build-up usually wear on me very quickly.

Same chatter on the television.

Same advertisements on the Internet.

Same class parties and stuff to buy.

Of course, that's one way to look at it.

Same husband to take me out to a candlelit dinner.

Same chocolate-covered faces saying "Thank you, Momma!"

Same words written the the cards, that I can never hear enough.

Each year, I try to be less of a cynic and ever more grateful.

A friend of mine posted Thoreau as her FB status yesterday - "Things do not change, we change." I love when someone else quotes a Transcendentalist to me. If I were to tell this friend how she changed the course of my day, my week!, she would begin to regard me as the nerd that I am. Because hearing Walden quoted to me (when I've had a week of reading my college copy of SELF RELIANCE to keep me self-possessed an un-depressed), and not just Walden, but a succinct quote that explained everything (except why my son's socks get stiff and crunchy at the bottom), I nearly cried at the beautiful simplicity.

I said nearly.

This year, I see the things that have stayed the same, but I try - and usually succeed - in looking at them differently.

I think I am finally starting to understand.

I see chocolate, roses, and heart-shaped crafts coming home from school. But I look at it all, especially the things that aren't spoken, obvious, or noticed without a few years of experience, and realize that strangely, those are the things most fleeting.

Things don't change, we change.

Yeah.