Casual Love Between Friends

It was the second Wednesday in February of 1979. If it were any other day I would have lounged about in my parents seemingly oversized bed alternating between sips of homemade chicken soup and freshly squeezed orange juice. But despite a burning forehead and my mother's pleas, I insisted on going to school.

Back then I did not know of red roses or champagne (other than the one time I got to play flower girl at my cousin's wedding.) Nor did I realize that crushes, broken hearts or promises of commitment were a few grades away. The madness which propelled me to pile a stack of signed and sealed Snoopy cards into my school bag and rush out the front door, was affection. For my 22 classmates, even if it meant projecting that morning's breakfast all over my teacher's brown suede shoes, which I did, what mattered to me most was unequivocal friendship, before any of us were ripe enough to let social judgment exclude another.

For more than twenty five years, on and in between occasions of red roses and champagne, I still continue to embrace the day many of my friends have come to dread. And not for once could I understand how so many of them took an evening at home with a box truffles and Kleenex as a screw you testament to Hallmark for assembling this Machiavellian holiday. They say "if you have one best friend you are lucky." Truth is, life will bring a few good ones a long the way, right when you need them. And just like there was an assortment of types in that second grade classroom, some will be smart, others will be fun and as you travel through life some will be older and yes, married, but each one of them deserves to be celebrated.

I get the commercial ridiculousness of February 14th but how bad can a little love and some chocolates be when it is just between friends?