Hello fellow Sh*theads. Are you surprised to see me? It’s been a bit… 7-8 months or so. When last we saw each other I was ruminating on shared cinematic and literary universes. It was late spring/early summer, and temperatures were… About 30-40 degrees warmer than they are, right now on this chilly and cloudy night in February. February 11th to be exact. You know what that means, if you’ve been following me for 30 or so years. Dare I say it? Dare I invoke the coming day that has been the bane of my existence for decades?

Survey says? Why the f*ck not. Happy V-D Day WEEK friends, family and country men/women.

As I write these words, couples are making plans for a romantic night out on the 14th. Some are at CVStress shopping for that perfect, heart-shaped box of Russell Stover chocolates that doesn’t remotely resemble the ACTUAL shape of the human heart. Others are ordering flowers and a few… A rare few are planning a night out at the bar or bars on Saturday in a vain effort to pick up a quick hookup not in the hopes of propagating the human species, but because they need to… Get their rocks off, so to speak.

Truth be told, I hold nothing against any of these people… These archetypes of different relationships in the Year of Our Lord, on this side of the proverbial wormhole of existence, 2026. It’s not THEM that I take exception to. It’s the day itself, folks. Valentine’s Day. The most over-commercialized and pointless holiday in the pantheon of holidays. An attempt to make us think warm thoughts in the depth of the winter, and to FEEL warm things in our frigid bodies at the same time. Yes, that was intentional and yes, it means what you think it means.

O (😂) Valentine’s Day. Coined “V-D Day” by a former incarnation of the Madchronicler who is writing these words this cold evening: El Autoro.

Anyone that knows me knows my disdain for this “holiday.” You know all too well that in life and love, there are many things I cherish. An unbroken embrace. A long, passionate kiss that may… Or may not lead to certain actions that propogate the human species. Falling asleep next to someone you really and truly Love with a capital L. Moments of silence between two people that are not awkward, but necessary because love… REAL love doesn’t always need conversation. Simply presence, i.e. just being there with each other, not out of necessity but because of want.

All these things and others remain, despite my current status as a 50-year old, recovering romantic. But V-D Day? Never. Which begs the question that no one has asked me in the three decades since it became the equivalent of a curse word for me. Why? Why do I hate it so much?

I’m sure you crave details. Names. Places. DRAMA. Sadly, I will not give you that. Not out of spite, or a desire to deprive you of said information, but because… Because one of the things I value, along with the things I mentioned above is privacy. Secrecy. As stories go, this one is inherently mine. It involves others, but those “others” have moved past this particular story, and for me to reluctantly pull them back into it after so long… I won’t. I can’t.

What I can and will tell you is that almost 30 years ago, I enjoyed one of the greatest, most perfect nights of my life. There have been others… Moments in time that I treasure. My wedding day and the reception that followed. The births of my daughters. But the one in question? It was flawless. The most amazing Valentine’s Day ever. Yet that day and night… That particular moment was fleeting, and led to one of, if not the most chaotic arcs of my early, life story. There have been others since, but that one? I always come back to it, because for the first time in my life, I went through a gamut of emotions that shocked my then-20 year old heart, soul and mind to their cores. Love. Hate. Joy. Anger. Passion. Longing. Loyalty. Disloyalty. Loss. But from that loss? A gain… GAINS I would not sacrifice for anything.

The eventual result of this arc… This ACT of my life was a reshuffling of everything from my friends to my relationships. I came out of it a different person. In short? The boy that called himself El Autoro pre-that stretch emerged from it a man that calls himself the Madchronicler. It was my passage from boy to adulthood. My coming of age. Bloody, but necessary.

Now, here I am. Almost three decades later. A divorced, single (emphasis on SINGLE) father of two amazing teenage daughters. I have a single family home in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. I drive a gently loved 2020 Chevy Equinox and not a 1984 Pontiac Sunbird with a leaky moon roof. I’m a Business Development Manager, not a college student/Shift Supervisor/Head of Evening and Weekend Circulation. I have moderately high Blood Pressure and Type 2 Diabetes despite being down almost 100 LBS from my all-time high weight. Yet despite this, here I am on February 11th, 2026 ruminating about something that happened to me three decades… 70% of my life ago. Talk about long-term emotional damage. And it all started on… You guessed it! Valentine’s Day. V-D Day.

Is it starting to make sense? I hope so. One of the most magical and magnificent days and nights of my life followed by one of the most chaotic stretches in my life which… Basically caused me to reboot everything from my romantic and non-romantic relationships to my mentality about ALL relationships. For the first time in my life, I felt Love with a capital L, and promptly lost it, along with certain friendships that dominated my early life. My heart broke for the first of many times. All because of…

Yep. Valentine’s Day. V-D Day: The scapegoat for my first, real heartbreak. The cause? No. But the catalyst. And the thing… The entity I choose to blame for it. Cupid can go f*ck himself with his own bow and arrow. THIS my oft time, casual readers is the reason why I despise February 14th so much. Combined with the fact that it’s little more than a retail holiday, built to increase Gross Margin and Q1 profits for stores like CVStress that no one shops at in the dead of winter because sh*t, who wants to go to the store in Sub-Zero wind chills and a half a foot of snow without the promise of candy and prophylactics? Survey says?

NO ONE. Hell, I’d be home under a blanket typing this and not sitting in my car were it not for the fact that my girls have dance and play rehearsal tonight. If given the choice I’d lock my house doors and shutter my windows in December and not open them again until mid-March.

But that choice is sadly not feasible, and the impact of that long ago, V-D Day which started by a river and ended by a phone booth is indisputable. Because of it and what happened after it, I became… Me. The Me I see in the mirror every morning with a bushy, salt and pepper beard, a receding hairline, crows feet at the corners of my once brilliant blue eyes and complimentary bags under them. A younger version thereof, but the Me I would one day be.

That being written and re-read, an unexpected question just popped into my always pondering mind. No, not why did I turn those closing paragraph sentences into an almost-rhyming couplet (I honestly don’t know). If that event from three decades ago and what happened after it was the early origin of who I am today…

Why is that a bad thing?

Don’t I like the person I am today?

Don’t I like him more than the person I was then? Now, I am a man… A self-published author (times two) with a good job, food in my fridge and money in my pocket, two loving daughters, a wonderful group of family and friends, a gently loved 2020 Chevy Equinox that doesn’t have a leaky moon roof and my own little slice of the American Dream, i.e. a home in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Isn’t he… Aren’t I better off than that lovestruck, pre-adult who selfishly sacrificed many of his friendships for Love, only to have his… My heart gutted and scarred for decades, scars which while not entirely healed have faded to little more than dull aches that only show up in the weeks leading up to V-D… Err, Valentine’s Day each year? Survey says?

No. I don’t hate the man I am. Nor do I or will I ever hate the early-adult I was back then. Everything I’ve been through… Everything WE go through in life contributes to who we become, both good and bad. Every decision that we make is a decision that WE make, and I do not regret the decision I made three decades ago because had I not… Had I opted for a different, less chaotic path then who knows how my life would have turned out? Who knows what Me I’d see every time I look in a mirror. Mayhap I’d be better off than I am now, but that thought line… That proverbial road leads only to regret. Or elation depending on the answer. And I will not traffic in what ifs.

So maybe it’s time… Maybe it’s FINALLY time to stop blaming V-D Day and start accepting it for what it is to the majority of Sh*theads that propagate the human species on this side of the proverbial wormhole of existence. Maybe it’s time to restore it to its once place in my subjective universe. Maybe it’s time to remember Valentine’s Day as a day when, almost 30 years ago, I was blessed with a moment of sheer and utter bliss that many wait their whole lives to experience but never do. The Perfect Day and Night. Maybe THAT’S why I remember it still after all these years. Not because of what came after, but because for one night, a 20-year old college student/Shift Supervisor/Head of Evening and Weekend Circulation got to experience an unbroken embrace with his first muse… His first Love with a capital L by a river’s edge…

Got to dance with her by moonlight and the flickering bulb of a phone booth which no longer exists…

We didn’t kiss that night. If anything, that was a line I was then unable to cross. I would cross it later, but in that moment, loyalty and sense overruled passion and disloyalty. It wasn’t until the feeling deepened that I forsook inhibition and said “what the f*ck?” And despite what happened after… I do not regret it. ANY of it. Because when I feel alone on nights like tonight… When I witness the rest of the populous on this side of the proverbial wormhole of existence preparing in earnest for February 14th, I remember what once was, and I wonder… I ponder if I’ll ever experience another day and night like it again. If it happened once, why not a second time? Survey says?

Unknown. But I can hope.

Happy Valentine’s Day, fellow Sh*theads. Winky emoticon. Smiley face.

El Autoro/the Madchronicler