It's almost Valentines Day. I don't care.

I was going to write a post about Valentine's Day -- that's just around the corner, right? -- but then I realised I don't actually like Valentine's Day. That might sound like a strange confession from someone who writes romances, but it's true. I've blogged before about my inability to produce happy, glittery kissy love, and you know what? I'm okay with it. 

I don't really do hearts and flowers and stuffed animals. Buy me books instead. 
I'd much rather get a takeaway and watch a movie than go to a fancy restaurant and be intimidated by waiters who, just by looking at me, know that I'm more used to wine in a box than whatever's on their list. And I'm okay with that as well. Wine in a box is highly underrated, for the record. 
Candles and rose petals in the bedroom? That's a massive fire hazard for starters. And while rose petals are pretty and smell nice, I don't imagine they're anywhere near as beautiful the next morning when you're trying to pick them out of the carpet. 
Love, to me, isn't a romantic gesture. It's not something you can buy from Hallmark. Love is the ability to look at another person, warts and all, and say to yourself, "You know what? I want to keep doing this with you." 
Love is the thing that makes you stick together when you've told him a hundred times to put his fucking socks in the laundry basket, not the floor, and you pick them up anyway. And when he's told you a hundred times how to refill that thing in your car where the water goes for the windscreen wipers, and then does it for you anyway. It's sleeping in when his alarm goes off and copping a goodbye kiss to whatever part of your head that isn't shoved under the pillow. It's leaving sticky notes on the fridge to maintain some sort of human contact when you don't cross paths for days. 
It's not gifts and flowers and love songs, and one gesture made on one arbitrary day. And I'm okay with that as well.