I just spent an hour card shopping for Valentines.  The card manufacturers need to get with the times.  Take my mailing list for example:

My 36 year old daughter is not only single, never been married.  She’s not even dating.  She just bought her own 2700 sq. ft. home, drives an Infinity, still listens to classic punk and has a half dozen or so tattoos.  She tells me I’m archaic because I still occasionally fall into believing in romance, love at first sight, and happily ever after.

My son is 31.   Single, not dating, and as far as I know, not hooking up.  Lives in his own home with backyard swimming pool; now considered a 1 bedroom, 2 bath, 2 office home.  Give him his 60” television and a remote and he’s good to go.  Last year he traveled to England, France, Italy and Israel.  He too tells me I’m beyond hope when I mention grandchildren or even step-grandchildren.

Then there are my three best friends.  Single, professional, busy, exhausted women; selling the empty nest homes, downsizing, and too tired to date.  They are still willing to see a chick flick movie occasionally but all three will tell you there may be other fish in the sea, but most of them are either whales or sharks. 

My sister.  This one should be easy.  Married, stay at home mom. Lives in small town America.  Nine years younger than me but still considered an “older woman”; she was raised on Disney fairy tales, Gidget, and the Brady Bunch . She e mails me daily about her husband of thirty years.  “Hit man?  Boat accident?  Poison? Which one will get me less jail time?   Romance, cupid, love.  I don’t think so.

The man I’ve been involved with for six years?  Looks at the unopened envelope on any occasion- birthday, Christmas, Halloween – and asks,” Is this mushy?”  He likes all kinds of music – country, pop, 60’s, 70’, 80’s – until he hears the word love in the lyrics and the radio is tuned to another channel in two seconds flat.  His idea of romance is trimming the backyard trees or having sex.  He believes in Tina Turner’s viewpoint – What’s Love Got to Do With It? 

I happen to like Valentine’s Day and I’d love to get a mushy valentine, a box of chocolates and a few dozen roses.  I remember in grade school making a large three-dimensional heart shaped envelope out of construction paper, decorating it with cut-outs of white paper doilies, waiting anxiously as every one in our class placed their carefully chosen card inside.  Once in awhile, if the person really liked me, I’d find a candy message heart saying “You’re Cute”.   No one was left out.  Everyone was remembered. On that one day each year every ten year old in the class liked each other.  And now?