Dear Giants,

Valentines Day may be a corporate marketing holiday designed to jump-start sales of roses, greeting cards, and chocolate-flavored comestibles.  All the same, when you don’t have money on any of those things, it’s a holiday designed solely for appreciating the ones you love.  With you coming in on my list of “Things I Love” right ahead of breathing, water, and world peace, I feel as though it’s necessary to express my true feelings in this letter for the whole world to see.

Sometimes our love hurts so good.

Our relationship began when I was just four years old.  It was a day game at Candlestick Park and the Pirates were in town.  We locked eyes for just an instant, but immediately I knew it was love at first sight.  Everything from those stylish orange and black outfits you wear so often, to the ways in which you’ve created so many great moments in my life, I’ve come to appreciate you more with every passing day.  We weren’t always a happy couple though.

There were times where I felt as though you weren’t even trying in the relationship.  I couldn’t do all the emotional lifting, and it began to take its toll on me (or at least as much of an emotional toll as an eight year-old is capable of).  Right when things came to a breaking point before 2002, you promised me the world.  At the end of that fateful year though, things came crashing down, and I needed to take a break from the pain and suffering you had inflicted on me so cruelly.

It took years for me to recover from that heartbreak, and sometimes it seemed as though you were just going through the motions.  For years you sleep-walked through our relationship, and eventually I was forced to skip town and make a home for myself in the Northwest.  My lack of proximity only made my heart fonder though, as I began to struggle with the emotional strain that goes hand-in-hand with a long-distance relationship.

Yet still, we persevered.  Every night from 7:05 to 10:30, we’d spend three magical hours together communicating via the only means we had, the Internet.  I would get strange looks from passersby when we’d fight, as people would stare bemusedly while I yelled and threatened violence at a computer screen.  But then something this last year clicked, as we embraced all of our successes and flaws and reached a new stage in our relationship.

The fighting was still all too present, but in the 11th hour, we’d always seem to reach a compromise of sorts.  You’d kick and scream in that stubborn way of yours until you were blue in the face, but every night things seemed to end up working out for the best in some strange, unexplainable way.  By the time October rolled around, the passion was at a high point.  Every night I would count the minutes until I’d see you.  Every moment we spent together in that fateful month was rife with tension that never seemed to end.  The possibility of you inflicting a coronary became a daily occurrence, yet we fought through until the very end.

On the first day of November, you gave me the greatest gift of all: a giant gold trophy with flags arranged in a circular pattern around the edges.  While it’s not a typical gift that couples exchange, it still touched my heart.  Here you were, committing yourself to me as I had committed myself to you 18 years ago.  Finally, we were on the same page in what had been a tumultuous relationship to say the least, and all it took was a little bit of gold and a whole lot of insane luck.

On this day devoted to love, I feel as though it would be appropriate for me to confess my love for you, the Giants.  We’ve had our ups, and we’ve had our downs, and to be honest there have been a lot of downs.  But in one moment all of those pitfalls and all of that heartbreak was erased from my consciousness.  My naivete may just as well be setting me up for further heartbreak down the road.  But for the time being, let’s just live in the here and now.  No relationship is perfect, and ours is certainly no exception to this meme.  Happy Valentine’s Day, and may we enjoy many more to come.

My undying love, devotion, and righteous anger,

Nick