Why I hate flowers and Valentine's..

I used to like flowers. They are pretty to look at. And they smell nice too. Well, sometimes. I used to pick the little amount that we had in the garden to present to my mom, or my pre-school teacher. There was something about the way they received the little gift. I always noticed it. For a second or two, their eyes would evince a certain surprise, a certain sense of joy, a certain satisfaction, a certain something I couldn't explain.

Until a certain suspense-killer-thriller book came into the hands of the pre-puberty me. It was perhaps one of the most dangerous indoctrinations of my life. But alas, the damage is done.
The book was about a killer who warned his prey of his plans to kill them. Sounds stupid? Then prepare for the next line. He warned them through poems.

In one of his romantic murders, he wrote (I quote this through how it was imprinted on my twelve-year old mind, which I think is more reliable than my current memory):

Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
The only flowers you'd getThis Valentine's day
Will be on your grave.

My twelve year old mind wasn't able to process the naivete of the killer's mind. What stuck was: Flowers. Valentine's. Grave. And I was dead scared. Probably because I knew, through that little sense of feeling that we had as children, that there was something more to the poem than an ill-rhymed manifestation of a deranged mind.

That feeling turned into observations. On Valentine's, my dad always brought home flowers for my mom. Most of them were ill disguised, either in tattered boxes, or crammed into hastily folded newspaper. I knew my mom feigned most of her surprise, but I swear the joy was genuine. Then the fight they had the days before would be history. I thought it would be nice, one day, to be given flowers that were meant just for me. For once, I thought, I'd like to feel what my mom felt when she opened the hastily wrapped package and smell those roses as if she were a 3-yr old on her first trip to a garden. For once, i thought, I didn't want to be the one wrapping the gifts.

Then years passed. Valentine's days passed. Teacher's days passed. Christmases passed. And the flower market just grew richer and richer because of me.

But somehow, the flowers never found their way back to me.

Then came the deaths in the family, and more flowers were delivered, but this time for a greyer purpose. The romantic murderer again creeped up in my mind. Flowers. Valentine's. Grave. I gew scared, as time passed, that I just might be another of his victim.

Until I finally made a resolution that I will do my best to deserve those flowers. That I will be the best I can be. I always thought that if you work just hard enough, you'll get anything you want. It's the American Dream at its best, and it can apply to flowers, too.

I thought that maybe, if I love just hard enough, I'll get what I want. As a bonus. Like those mp3 players the credit card companies give out on Christmas.

But alas, no flowers found their way to me. I thought I finally got them last year, when, upon entering my dorm room I found a dozen roses on my table. The guard said someone had it delivered. But when I checked the note, it turned out to be a simple case of misdelivery. So simple, tears fell on my books as I studied that night.

During these times, I always think if I've loved enough already. If I've been doing stuff wrong. I've learned to tell people, over the years, that I hated flowers. And that I hate Valentine's. That it was a commercial piece of shit.

But really, and I have the courage to say this today, that I am just scared. Scared that I haven't been loving the people I want enough. And scared that I'd end up dead without being able to make the people I love know that I love them so much. I don't want the only flowers I receive in my life to be the ones that will be on my grave. I do not want to die without having loved my best.

I do not fault other people for having not read about that romantic murderer who left love poems of death. As I said, it was the biggest indoctrination of my life. I do not pass the blame.

I know that if there is anything to learn from every year's torture of seeing flowers on Valentine's, it is that we should all learn to love the best we could. And to love with every bit of our selves. And if we receive flowers as a bonus along the way, then good for us. If not, then we're not really the flower type of person. Sad, but there's really nothing left to do.

But we should never stop loving. And that is what I am just about to do. It's just another day in the year to love, again.

p.s. Come to think of it, I'll be keeping that book for my future kids.