Valentine’s Day…love…flowers…love songs…long walks holding hands…movies with happy endings…lingering looks…Hallmark cards…chocolates…romance.

I’m a believer – not a trace of doubt in my mind. I’m in love…and I couldn’t leave her if I tried.

Neil Diamond wrote and recorded the song I’m a Believer in 1966 but The Monkees version is the one I sometimes hum and occasionally even remember the words to actually sing it out loud by myself.  It’s also the finale number for the first Shrek movie and I like to think of DonKEY singing it with such gusto and True Love victorious in the hearts of Shrek and Fiona.  I thought for sure they lived happily ever after until I saw Shrek movie #2 followed by Shrek movie #3.  That was a couple with relationship issues.

Alas, all relationships have issues because life moves around and through us like the plight of the Prince who longed to make Fiona his bride so he could rule the Kingdom.  He tried and he tried but Fiona’s True Love for Shrek ruled instead.

Teresa treated me to a Burlesque Show at a local theater for Valentine’s night, and it turned out to be an eventful evening.  The show was entertaining with a great emcee and talented performances and, well, lots of Burlesque complete with colorful feathers and other cleverly placed teasers on the scantily clad actors.  Oh, my.

If we had just gone home after the show, we would have missed the drama that was even more fun.  Think about our truck keys locked in the ignition in a dark parking lot and then think no cell phones because each of us thought the other brought one.  Now picture the kindness of a stranger who drove me home to get a spare truck key while he dropped Teresa at the car of the friends we were meeting for dessert after the Burlesque show – the friends who had almost given up hope on us since we had no way to call them.

Then imagine my driving in Teresa’s car to meet all of them at a restaurant which was still serving at that hour of the night and feeling relieved to have resolved the locked key dilemma only to get a text message from our Canterbury Road neighbor on the newly retrieved cell phone that says: Did you feel the earthquake?  The TV news says it was 5.4 on the scale.  Sounded like the roar of a plane falling from the sky.

Seriously?  Yes, and we must have been the only four people in South Carolina who didn’t feel the earth move.  Not even our dogs were wigged at the earthquake by the time we made it home on Valentine’s night.

Life often interferes with our plans, but True Love learns to roll with it and laugh at the follies we create for ourselves.  If we believe, not even an earthquake can shake us.