Dear Me,

Happy Valentine�s Day! Okay, so it�s not exactly Valentine�s Day but that holiday is this month�sometime. I�d post this valentine on the correct day but I�m not at all sure that I want to be that much of a slave to the calendar.

In any event, I�m writing you this valentine because I have to, not because I want to. It�s not that I don�t like you. Actually, I like you quite a bit. I even love you. No, the problem is that I don�t really believe in coerced writing. It just doesn�t mean much to me---and Valentine�s Day is �I love you� pressure, big time.

I�m not much for card holidays and I�m much more glad than most people would imagine that On Display has not asked me to send myself roses. Roses are beautiful but they make me sneeze. I�d be perfectly willing to send myself chocolate but I don�t wait for holidays to do that. Nor do I wait for instruction on that matter. I do it whenever things seem tough as my hips will attest.

I just prefer the spontaneous expressions of love. They seem more real�even from myself. No valentine can ever compete with the thrill of receiving a card that says �I love you� after a day of playing Mommy the Nursemaid to two children who are throwing up. Such cards more than fulfill my expectations because my expectations are low on such days.

If I really concentrated on Valentine�s Day, I might be perpetually disappointed. The commercials show people doing all sorts of expensive things or getting all sorts of expensive gifts that I have no intention of getting myself. Whatever self-love the glitz might buy me on February 14th, I would lose when I had to pay the bill. The truth is that if Mr. Philately got me such things on Valentine�s Day, I wouldn�t respect him the next morning either.

I want to be romantic and to love my own way�not the way Hallmark thinks I should or the floral industry thinks would be good for them. (If I�m being honest, I have to confess that I might be willing to do quite a bit for the chocolate industry if they�d promise me free dark chocolate.) I want to appreciate myself enough to not to send myself one of those cheesy Tasmanian Devil valentines that you have to buy in two packages of twenty so that you can stuff all twenty-two mailboxes of the children in a single class. I want to appreciate myself enough to write myself a sonnet some other day. Heck, I want to appreciate myself enough to believe that some days I should not get something special. If I never love myself, I�m in sad shape. If I always love myself totally, I suspect mania is taking over.

So, this is a valentine on the wrong day according to traditionalists but exactly the right day according to me. It�s a love note and it�s not. It�s not mushy and gushy and full of poetry but it�s just right for me.

Love,
Plankton

(P.S. I�d sign this note �Me� but as everyone in my family knows, notes signed �Me� are notes from my mother.)

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