---
title: "The Weight of Valentines Day"
date: 2026-02-15
url: https://learningischange.com/2026/02/15/the-weight-of-valentines-day/
author: Ben Wilkoff
categories: ["Typewriter"]
tags: ["holiday", "family", "Obligation"]
---

# The Weight of Valentines Day

![SwiftScan Feb 15, 2026 9.14 AM.jpeg](/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/SwiftScan Feb 15, 2026 9.14 AM.jpeg)


## Transcript

It 1s valentines day 2026, A n thing holiday that continues to be marked by many. I have never found it compelling in the way that a few holidays across the calendar have found purchase with me. I reflect about # my relationship with my country on the forth of july. I constder racism and the legacy of injustice on MIX day. Christmas has always been a frought day with the most anticipation and serious contemplation. I have often thought of Bastille day as more impatant than Valentines. I think that 1a mostly due to my son being born and my reverence 6ох righteous rebellion.

valentines, though, like most forced affection days like lather and mother's day. Like the nonsense days that are marked withoat any reverence or ritual. What do you do for a Friday, the 13? I feel. love on my own, at my own pace and in my own ways. I do not need a yearly reminder of it. Not while I was with my wife of 20 rears, and not while I am alone. If you need to be reminded of rour love for or from some ›ne else, ia it real?

And for some folks, it resonates. And it should be available to all. But, the expectation is what kills me.

We invited a family to live with us when I was 25. Four people who formed a family, living in our basement so thay could save for a house that would never come. They stayed with us through one February 14. That year I made a mosaic of photos out of our rapidly groving collection of pictures with our foursome. Kara, Ben, Oliver, and Tobias. They were all across this multipage printout that showed our love for one another. It also spelled out Happy Valentines Day. And as I hung it up in the front room of our house, I could fed the expectations in the air. Both that I bad somebem met them, and how the father of the family staying with us bad not. For that V-day, I was a good husband and be wes by compariosa, not.

It did not feel good. It felt like I was playing a game. Like there was a winner, a threshold to meet and surpasa that could earn points. And this constant matting question, "have I done enough?"

Birthdays are a smaller version ofthis, but at least then, you can just celebrate the peram. You don't have to celetrate a nebul us and ever changing love, You can simply appreciate the person and what they mean to you at they pass one more milestone. But, reb. 14 isn't a milestone. It 1s an obligation to lift up a singular type oi love and to periorm it for others, And as Mason lhomas round out that day in 2009, performing it badly has consequences. WE have all been opted into & shared understanding of time and culture. And that means that each time we come back to this part of the year, we must aknowledge the power of these expectations upon us, They are heavy and we can tell durselves that they don't matter. But, # eren I must admit that they do.