Yet another St. Valentine’s Day will soon descend upon us. Those enchanted by fresh romance will agonize at length, wondering how best to make that day special. Some have spent many years with their beloved, appreciative of the predictability that has replaced the uncertain excitement of days long past. Properly remembering others on that day may derive from desire, a sense of obligation or a confusing combination of the two.
St. Valentine’s Day can also be a gloomy time of year. Thoughts may turn to long ago love affairs, of intoxicating hopes that eventually gave way to bitter disappointment. Yet other musings may drift toward the long hoped-for relationship of a lifetime, that almost happened but didn’t.
The sense of lost opportunity may be the cruelest vexation of all. That potential love interest may have entered our life two weeks or a month before both are to depart for opposite corners of the country. Maybe you met that someone at a particularly difficult time of your life, when you were preoccupied with one of the many crises that life casts upon us, and once the dust settled, that person was gone. Perhaps the most maddening frustrations occur when matters of romance are determined by misleading or incomplete information.