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What If All You Have To Show For It Are Memories?

Friday was Valentine's Day. A Hallmark holiday, that has become such a symbol of commercial capitalism, it's lost it's allure. That being said, we all want to share this ridiculous day with someone special.  Ideally the day consists of giving someone a token if your appreciation, a box of chocolate, a card and some dinner and eventually ends up with a sensual finale. The key word is ideally. I've done everything from jewelry to champagne & chocolate covered strawberries to ordering a pizza to spending it alone. In the end, it's really nothing more than a day in your life.

We have this desire to hold into special days. Through gifts, cards, pictures or video, we've become a culture that needs a record of each happy event. But why? Isn't that feeling you had when you saw their face as they opened that gift, read that card or bit into that strawberry enough.  Why can't memories be enough.

What if the important part of last Friday wasn't the picture of me sandwiched between to girls smiling. It wasn't the outfits the wore or money spent. What if it wasn't some sexual tension or lack thereof that made the night special? What if it's nothing more than a group of people, all lacking a little something that night, coming together? What if in ten years, I can't remember what I bought so and so and the night of passionate sex, but I do remember the night I laughed alone and with others alone?  I will never hold something tangible from that night and the kisses that ended it were kisses you'd share with a friend or the family member who made your day.

Pictures and videos and personal mementos can capture an instant, but they don't capture the feeling. The fun, the silliness, the warmth and for lack of a better word, the love.  Those memories will be all I will be able to take from that night and do you know what? I'm good with it.

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