Love Month Throwback

This post originally appeared on my Facebook notes on February 15 of 2011:

Valentine's day, 2003 

I was 18, single, and desperately in love with a clueless guy. My journal entry for that day was this: 

"What's new? Yet another Feb.14 has come and gone, and I'm still alone. No matter what other people might say about being patient and letting love find you instead of running after it, I still can't erase this ugly feeling of being desolate, unwanted, and unloved. Who wants to be alone anyway? Sure, it's easy for people to say that they don't actually need someone in order to be happy, but it's quite another thing to live up to that statement. Wouldn't it be nice to spend Valentine's day next to someone very special? I'm pretty sure it would be cool to have a person in your life who's always there to offer you a hug, an assurance that you are beautiful, and that you are loved. It would be nice to find that one person that you'll forever share your life with. It simply sucks to go on like this! If my prince would truly come, then what is taking him so long!?!" 

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1 year later (Valentine's day, 2004)

I was 19, and it was my first Valentine's day in a relationship. It was dusk already, and before saying goodbye for the day, (we didn't have a proper Valentine's date because I had a school activity that night) my boyfriend handed me a piece of paper. When I inspected it later that night, out fell a piece of dried rose. It was still intact with its petals, leaves, and stem all flat. In his letter, my boyfriend explained that he kept this flower pressed between the pages of a book for the past year. This was the flower that he got for me on Valentine's day a year ago, but he never got the courage to give it because he was still too shy to let me know how he felt for me. So he preserved it in the hope that one day he will get the chance to give me my rose.

That was the only flower that I ever received from Critch on Valentine's day so far, in our seven years together. But it was the most special flower in the world. Looking back, I realized now that I was actually the clueless one, because while I was writing that bitter journal entry the year before, the guy that I was desperately in love with was actually pressing a lovely pink rose into the pages of a book and waiting for the right time to let me know that I am beautiful, I am cherished, and I am loved. ♥