There was nothing in the forecast about snow on Sunday up until yesterday. But here it is, Sunday afternoon and I can't see a thing outside my window. Such thick fall of white insanity covering everything in sight. I should have known - what is Valentine's day without snow. I don't remember a Valentine's day without a little snow, and I don't remember a Valentine's day without a little sadness.

I remember one time when I was in college, it snowed so much that all classes were cancelled on the morning of February 14. That was a good start to Valentine's day for most of us. Then another year it was such a bad blizzard that those overpriced flower deliveries never made it to their recipients.  Then another time, I was an hour late for dinner because the traffic was horrendous with the sudden onset of snow.

I also remember all sadness of Valentine's day. And that sadness doesn't come with a lack of a partner or the wrong partner. Oh, none of that. It's because it's all so forced. The forced flowers, the forced dinner, the forced chocolates that I don't even like, the unavailability of dinner reservation and the pressure to get one. Perhaps the snow tries to cover the pretentiousness of it all but fails miserably every year. I hate things being forced on me. Love, of all things. Love should never be forced. It wouldn't be loved then. Valentine's day has become just so sad.

~Short Story~

We had been coming here at Kay's beach house ever since we were in college. Every spring. Every year. All of us would be here. Significant others changed through the years but we remained. The five of us. After college, I would see all of them during the year except perhaps Sam. We saw less and less of each other with each passing year. And then just only at the beach house.  One year he showed up wearing a bow tie. Looked like a compete idiot. Not many men can pull off bow ties, some shouldn't even try. Another year he was supporting a full bushy beard. His brownish-blond beard. Very unruly and unkempt. I wanted to run my fingers through it. I stopped myself from doing that.

While so many things changed, some things remained constant. Every year on the third night, I'll come out of the beach house around 2 a.m. when everyone else is asleep. I;d walk up to the shore and find him sitting there among the rocks, smoking. We never talked about it, never planned to meet, but it always happened that way. He kept coming back to the beach in the middle of the night, so did I. Perhaps to just remind ourselves of the life we once inhaled among the rocks, when the roaring inside us, the thrashing life, could easily drown the roaring of the ocean. Now there was just silence, except the mockery of the waves.

I sat next to him. He looked at me like he always did, with longing for something you've once had and then lost. He touched my bare feet with his hands. I let him. His hands were warm. My feet were cold. I could see him through the dark. His eyes were always bright bringing me to life.  He touched my head. I closed my eyes. I didn't need to see him after that, I knew I wouldn't be able to feel him much longer.

For a moment, it felt exactly how it used to feel when we were in college - all reckless and thinking that life was full of possibilities. Now we were old. We had learned to live with the voids in our hearts. We weren't even sad anymore. Now we are mature enough, and scarred enough to know when to surrender our happiness.