Valentine''s Day | Kevin Raub | Editor

Too Many Memories by Kevin Raub

It was with admitted hesitation that I took on the assignment of writing an essay about Valentine's Day. I explained to my editor that I recently saw the end of a serious relationship that lasted nearly a decade and had ended gut-wrenchingly only months prior, and that I probably wasn't the best contributor to sing the praises of Valentine's Day, Cupid, or anything at all having to do with a union of two people.

Then I started to think about it.

I'll skip the modesty part here and say right from go that dating has never been one of the things I had any trouble with. I've had a girlfriend - not the same one, mind you - since I was about 14. I don't generally do the dating-around thing. I'm a relationship kind of guy, and I have been in some serious ones over the years. I feel better about myself when I'm sharing life with another, and I get into less trouble. I consider myself a romantic (though not a helpless one), which is why I was shocked when I discovered that I don't really have a single Valentine's Day memory of note. Not one. Nada.

Sticking with the age-14 time line, that's more or less 18 Valentine's Days I'm quite sure I spent with someone I loved, dining in romantic restaurants, walking hand-in-hand along seashores and quaint city streets, opening cutesy presents, exchanging heated hugs and kisses, and curling up on the couch at night's end and saying things like "I love you this much" and stretching my arms as wide as they could possibly go.

I'm positive that these things happened. Really. I don't work for Hallmark - these are true stories! But someone must have dug deep inside the part of my brain marked "February 14" and pressed Purge. However, as anyone who knows a thing or two about trashing computer files can tell you, they are never truly gone. I wanted to recover my Valentine's Day files, or, at the very least, find out where the heck they all went.