My Greatest Valentine's Day... EVER!

Last year, I blogged about my sudden, quite unexpected warming towards Valentine's Day. As a middle-aged divorcee, unsuccessful Dating Site veteran and lonely romance writer, I had all but given up hope of finding true love. In fact, I had stopped dating altogether for several years. Little did I know, a romance story of epic proportions was already being written for me by Fate himself. One with a happy ending to boot!

This time last year, I took what I felt was my last chance and joined a dating site one final time. I planned to give it one month. If love didn't find me this time, I was giving up, once and for all. I had already resigned myself to lonely, late nights of watching TV in bed with only a bowl of potato chips and perhaps a Persian cat to keep me company. The only romance I was sure to experience would be in old movies and books.

But there it was. Only hours after my dating site ad appeared, I got a 'wink message' from 'ScBob'. He was my age and ruggedly handsome (just like the leading men in my romance stories). His Profile painted him as a sincere, widowed family man who seemed to have a good sense of humor and no anger management issues. Exactly what I was looking for. I didn't realize at the time that he lived more than 50 miles from me, so I went ahead and accepted his offer to take me to dinner.

He was a gentleman and a good conversationalist. We ate, laughed and swapped life stories. After a quick kiss goodnight, I had a feeling we'd be seeing each other again.

Today, February 12, is our one year anniversary. We're celebrating it by getting married! At 6pm today, exactly one year after our first meeting, we'll be saying "I do".

Some people think it was a whirlwind romance. I believe we were waiting patiently all these years to finally meet and begin our lives together. I can't remember what life was like without him. Our 'song' is 'Don't Want To Miss A Thing' by Aerosmith.

It scares me to think how close we were to never meeting at all. I hadn't heard of 'Senior People Meet' before, but their pop-up ad nagged at my heart-strings until I decided to give love one more chance. When Bob signed onto the dating site that day, he planned to discontinue his membership. If I had joined even one day later, he never would have seen my picture or wrote to me.

So... for all the hopeful romantics out there wishing for their own Valentine's Day miracle... don't stop believing. This year could be the one you've been waiting for.

Happy Valentine's Day

Well, here I was, all ready to post a blog about the sickeningly sweet displays of Valentine's Day that will abound today. I was going to grumble about all the money wasted on greetings cards, chocolate, flowers and expensive dinners couples would be buying for each other to 'prove their love'.

I was planning to accuse Hallmark of deliberately inventing such a day, just to increase their profits. I envisioned myself smirking at all the weddings and marriage proposals taking place today. I even thought about recalling my elementary school days, where a shy and lonely little girl may have perceived her entire worth as a person from the amount of Valentine's Day cards she did or didn't get from her classmates.

Being divorced myself, and not having a date for the past two years made me kind of jaded, I guess. Not to mention the menopausal witch who lives inside of me, ever waiting to jump out and rear her ugly head. 

Yep, I was gonna do it up big time. Just about ruin the day for all the happy couples I could find. 

But then, just like in the story 'The Grinch Who Stole Christmas' my teeny little heart warmed and grew. I met a guy on-line and met him for dinner on Saturday night. He was very nice and we talked for three and a half hours. Better yet, we've planned a second date. And although it's very new and may not even go anywhere, I've been reminded what it's like to be a "we". The pleasure of an intimate conversation with a person who wants to know you, not because he's related to you, or works with you, but because he wants to. The warm glow and distant flicker of excitement to think that maybe, just maybe, he may even desire me as a woman. For so long now I have thought of myself only as a mom, a grandmom and a nursing supervisor. The role of woman was rapidly becoming a faded memory.

And even if it doesn't work out, I felt honored to be considered, relieved I still had it in me to get out there and try and blessed to be reminded of what romance is all about.

Relationships are hard. Should we have a day set aside to celebrate love, however much we're lucky to have? You betcha!

Happy Valentine's Day!