We want to love.

Today is Valentine's Day and yes, I know, it's a day that is cliched and created by the retail powers that be to guilt all of us into blatant and obscene consumerism blah blah blah. I even have a friend who calls it "Single Awareness Day" or S.A.D. The cynic in me knows all of this and wants to climb to the highest tower and scream, "Don't fall for it!"

However...

I have to tell you how much enjoyment I got from giving my loved ones little mementos of my feelings for them. For example, I gave a pair of sunglasses to my daughter who just this year is finally able to wear contact lenses due to a severe case of strabismus. Her whole childhood has been spent wearing very thick glasses. It made me smile to see her put them on and act like a rock star.

See, the thing is, I look around my town and work place and I see people who are downcast and isolated from one another. It's the rare person I come across who will actually look at me and offer a smile. We still are living lives of "quiet desperation." It just doesn't make sense.

Because you see, we want to love. We want to connect on a level that is ineffable. We want to be able to open that part of us that doesn't need defense mechanisms or armor.

No, we probably don't really need a made up holiday to buy a bunch of junk to tell the important people in our lives how we feel about them, but if you take a moment to think about the why and not the what, you'll see we need to take a moment for love.

We need Valentine's Day. Now, I think, more than ever.