Walking through the grocery store earlier this week, I absent-mindedly began to wander into the seasonal section. Pink and red hearts hung from the ceiling and burst from every overstuffed rack in the aisle. As I pushed my cart past the chocolate-covered cherries and bears holding satin roses, I started to get lost in the romantic hubbub of the season.

Near the end of the aisle, conversation hearts and red M&Ms gave way to a giant display of classroom Valentines. Jedi Knights, Sponge Bob, and 50 other childhood icons leapt out from the shelves, each hoping to make it to someone’s shopping cart this week, ready to wish dozens of little kids a Happy Valentine’s Day.

As I stared down at the happy little cartoons wishing me love and friendship and happiness, I began to think back to my grade school parties of the past. Everyone had that same doily-plastered white lunch bag taped to the side of their desk. Everyone got exactly 28 Valentines. And everyone spent the prior evening sorting through the perforated cardstock making sure their real friends didn’t get one of the cards that had been ripped, lest such an affront to a real friendship result in spending the rest of February eating your lunch alone on the monkey bars.

When you’re small, Valentine’s Day is all about your friends. Sure, a few of us had puppy crushes on classmates outside of our circle, but, in general, it was a day for your peeps. To love them and cherish them and make sure they didn’t get one of the smashed Twinkies in their white sack.

Yet as you get older, the group traditions start to fall by the wayside in favor of your honey. Your friends are still there and occasionally you still talk, but schedules are busier and priorities often get bumped, especially this time of year. Of course we want to make time for our significant others, but a lot of times it is at the expense of the other people in our lives.

I’m ashamed to say I’m especially guilty of this offense. Lately, several people in my life have been getting smashed Twinkies.

Of course, it’s gone on long enough that, in some cases, I’m not even getting Twinkies back at all anymore.

I look back on recent columns and realize even they have become a bit steeped in my relationship, and little more. And I imagine several of you are getting weary of it. So this Valentine’s Day, I want to set things right. Honey knows there will be time for him, but I need to start addressing the other 27 Valentines in the stack. As Ash Wednesday grows near, I put thought into what I must give up for forty days. But I wonder if, this year, there are things and people I need to work back into my daily life.

So here is my Valentine, Carbondale. It isn’t pink or red, and it isn’t sealed with an Anakin Skywalker or Hello Kitty sticker. But it is from the heart, and it does bear a loving signature. I’m sorry, and I promise to try much harder to earn back your attention. And in the meantime, please bear with me. I’ve got several Twinkies on my plate right now, and it’s going to be so hard not to keep a couple for myself.

Grace is a senior in architecture. Not just another Priddy face appears every Wednesday. These views do not necessarily reflect those of the Daily Egyptian.