“You don’t get to dictate how someone else loves you, kiddo.” This unwelcome news came from an unlikely source: my favorite professor, a known curmudgeon who made copy-editors-in-training including me shrivel into little twitching piles of nerves. I had been expecting a withering invective, and his philosophical turn was frankly unnerving. “Either accept it or don’t, but you don’t get to choose what it looks like.”

This particular lesson had come from a nasty breakup on the staff of the university’s newspaper that forced a change in the schedule of copy editors. As one of the copy chiefs, I had disagreed with any changes until one night, when all work on the desk skidded, crumbled and flumped to a standstill after the him in the story looked at the her with an emotion she interpreted as hatred. Both spent the rest of the evening sobbing in their respective bathrooms. Work did not go well. I had been summoned to his office to shed some light on the debacle.

That little bit of wisdom he gave me about love has stuck with me, and I usually have to haul it out, dust it off and tack it up on my mental wall during and after all relationships. And, of course, never more than during the month of February.

Being in the service industry, there’s no avoiding Valentine’s Day, and it lasts the entire month. That’s the only interesting thing besides massive quantities of snow and cold weather happening in February in Colorado. So after a freezing, miserable January, we’re all happy to move on to February, even with the excessive amounts of hearts and love in the air.

My entire night staff is single. I had recently, unexpectedly and unwillingly been returned to the singles pool, so the mood was grim as we discussed the holiday month. A black cloud descended onto the waitress station. The stories of breakups, cheating, fights, missed communication and bungled planning piled up. Finally, a dishwasher unloading clean glasses broke the thick crust of our collective bad mood.

“That’s such bullshit,” he said, standing up and drying his hands on his apron. “I’m going to get those little cartoon cardboard cards with the stupid sayings and the ‘To’ and ‘From’ on them and matching envelopes, and I’m going to fill them with those little word hearts and Red Hots, so you all better be ready to receive ‘em. I’m thinking Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”
“It’s only as bad as you’re going to make it,” he said, heading off to the kitchen.

Stunned that we failed to suck him into our black hole of Valentine’s Day-infused misery, we actually shut up for a few minutes, and the cloud dissipated somewhat. Stories of grade-school Valentine’s Days, when things were fun and silly, when the number of candies in your envelope told how much you were liked, and everyone got a Valentine came out. Things came back into perspective.

I got to thinking about how many people have done things for me in this past year to show how they love me in their own (sometimes peculiar) ways, sans candy, cards and hot pink envelopes. People in my life are actually pretty demonstrative. It hit me that I’m the bad Valentine in most cases, with bad behavior including unreturned phone calls, forgotten thank-you notes, missed occasions and lack of even simple words of gratitude.

I don’t really deserve flowers.

My old professor was right: I don’t have any say so in how the people in my life love me, or how they express it, or even if it will be expressed, but I do have every choice in how I express my love for them. It won’t be in cartoon form, and probably not flowers, hearts or candies either, but in my own way, I’ll be spreading around some sunshine and warmth and yes, fine, even some love this month. I’ll be working on my Valentine skills.

It’s a cold month, our February, and to do anything less would be, quite frankly, bullshit.

“How’s the baby?”

Looking up from the U-Scan computer at the grocery store, I start beaming with the pride of a happily exhausted parent.

“A month old! Today!” I reply, scampering over with pictures. “Look at the smiles!”

The “baby” in question is my restaurant, Pepperhead, and I do, embarrassingly enough, carry around pictures of opening day, and the latest happy groups and families that came in to eat, talk, laugh and enjoy themselves.

It’s only been a month since opening, day, but it’s been nearly a year in planning, plotting and arranging. Looking back a year, I wasn’t even living in the U.S.A. when my father and I started to talk about the possibility of opening a restaurant. I was working for a graduate program in Italy, with no plans for moving back to the States, and not even a flicker of an idea about starting and running a small business in my hometown.

My, how things change. My days are now filled with bookkeeping, schedules, deliveries, bills, meetings, and, of course, hostessing, which I do all day, every day we’ve been open. Except maybe tonight.

My brothers and their wives made the journey to Cortez, Colorado, to be home for Thanksgiving, something my family hasn’t done for probably seven or eight years because one or more of us had been out of the country. To allow for some sibling bonding and family time, I had arranged for a good friend (suitably, her name is Angel, which fits her role well) to fill in for me. But I can’t seem to make myself leave.

All I can think of is all the things that could go wrong if I’m not there. The cash register could malfunction. The credit card machine could jam. Angel might not be able to rethread the paper for the printers on either machine. Waitresses could be rude to her. Customers could be rude to her. I could have forgotten roughly a million things that she might need to know. Worst of all, she won’t do things exactly the way I do them, which is the crime most annoying to control freaks everywhere.

So I’m panicking. I’ve been out to my car and back to the hostess station five times to tell her one last thing. And check one last thing. And tell the waitresses (all experienced hands) one that thing. The kitchen staff has watched all of this with a certain amount of amusement. Finally, my dad pulls me into the kitchen.

“Your hostess just told off a bunch of customers, and they all got really angry and left,” he said.

“Ohmygod.  Ohhhhhhh, that’s so bad. Really?” I slump a little. I knew this was going to happen. Disaster. Should never have planned to leave.

“Of course not. I’m messing with you. Go home.” He laughs a little at me. Then he waves over Rya, my friend from childhood and right-hand man in the kitchen. “Rya, calm her down and make her go home.”

Rya gives a great hug. I try breathing and find that my lungs are working once again. My heart slows down.

“We’re fine. The waitresses are fine. It’s all fine. Go home. Your brothers are waiting for you,” he says, moving me through the kitchen and depositing me in the hall. “Go home!”

And I do. It’s a fantastic night of poker and catching up with my sibs. And the next morning, everything is, in fact, fine. Leaving my baby is a hard, hard thing, but at least the first time is over.