Kyle Berg

For the first time in my life, I had the chance to share Valentine’s Day with another person. The Day left me with two contradictory feelings.

One time I thought I disagreed with Rush Limbaugh. It was last year, Valentine’s Day of 2006. He was on a diatribe about how Valentine’s Day was highly commercialized and forced people into expressing love in a certain way on a certain day. He contented they couldn’t win either way. If they followed the protocol of Valentine’s Day, they were just doing what was expected of them. But if they didn’t, there would be hell to pay. Not only that, but many who spend the day alone feel depressed or like there is something wrong with them. I thought he was out of touch with the matter and his divorces had jaded his opinion of romance. But Maha Rushie was right. The day is incredibly commercial. Here in Argentina it’s called “El Día de Los Enamorados” (The Day of Those in Love). It’s celebrated, but it’s not anywhere near the dramatic production we put on in the U.S. While today was special, there wasn’t a pressure to come up with something “extra-special.” My feeling is when two people are in love, they don’t need an excuse to be romantic. It’s just a part of who they are and their love for each other. Today, Vanesa and I didn’t do or say anything that couldn’t easily resemble any other day of our relationship.

That being said, it was still nice to share the day with someone. I enjoyed shopping for wrapping paper and thinking of Vanesa’s reaction to her gifts. She’s been desiring to learn English since we met but the textbooks would be extremely expensive for her. I had been wanting to give her some beginning English books for a few weeks and decided today would be a good occasion. Her beginning grammar exercises, vocabulary book, and English-Spanish dictionary were accompanied by a rose and a chocolate heart that said “Te Amo.” She loved them and even kept what I had written on the wrapping paper. She gave me an adorable stuffed heart with two dogs on top. Underneath appear the words “Te Amo.” I not only loved the sentiment, but the dogs were exactly the same type of stuffed animals Paul and I used to have as kids. I think the dogs had a special brand name called “Pound Puppies.” If anyone remembers, please let me know.

I cannot tell you how special it is to be loved by a woman. As long as I can remember, I’ve liked romance tales. I’ve always wanted to be the man in the story expressing his love and being absolutely adored by the woman. But I thought it was just a dream and I’d end up marrying someone with whom I could not be romantic. My relationship with Vanesa couldn’t be anything further from that! With her it is impossible to be overly romantic. Yesterday she told me that we would both probably die together because it would be impossible for one of us to live without the other. I had been thinking the same thing and was about to say it, but she beat me to it. It doesn’t matter to me if others think it’s sappy or over the top. I want to have that enduring type of love that is retold for generations.