The Countdown is on, people! One week until Valentine’s Day!  Time for the collective push back at the commercial juggernaut Hallmark has built.  Boo to over-priced cards, short-lived flowers, tushy-padding candies and  dust-collecting, bedbug-colonizing bears.

We’ll celebrate our love the old-fashioned way . . . with a mixed tape. Of course, we know that mixed tapes have gone the way of the dodo and New Coke. It’s just that when Ellen and I got together with our guys, we still called playlists “mixed tapes”.

This list is a deeply personal one. Think of it as a love story, my love story, told in song. Of course, each and every song is a much better choice than a lot of what’s offered up on lists like this one.

1. “Fly Me to the Moon” by Frank Sinatra

The song that quite literally started our whole romance. Back in the day, a newfangled contraption arrived on campus called voicemail. Steve and I had started hanging out the fall of my senior year, but we weren’t really dating yet. We were both going to our school’s annual Screw Your Roommate dance though, and we planned on trying to sneak in a dance. Unfortunately, this SYR dance had about as much drama on the floor as you might expect. Long story short: our dance never happened. Sweet Steve sent me this song to my brand-spanking new voicemail with a fun message about dancing to it later. I was a goner, ladies. A total goner.

2. “Romeo and Juliet” by Indigo Girls

So the Indigo Girls were kind of a thing when we were in college, and this particular song played on a loop during my senior year AKA  the Heady-Crazy-About-Each-Other phase.  The soaring vocals, the raw emotion, the energy. It was and still is the epitome of young, earnest love.

3. “Home” by Bonnie Raitt

While not a huge country music fan in general, Bonnie Raitt and the Dixie Chicks bridge the Great Divide for me. This one captures so clearly that moment when I realized that I was right where I was supposed to be. This Guy. This Moment. The Future I was starting to imagine for us.

4. “Slow Dancing” by Bono

Is it enough to just say Bono? It should be. This is a special song for us. Hell, it should be for everyone. Try NOT to dance with your sweetheart to this one.

5. “At Last” by Etta James

This song was worn out for all the playtime I gave it in the months leading up to my wedding. Old songs sung by beautiful, strong voices hit every right note for me. Whenever I hear this one, I’m 23 again. I can’t promise time travel when you hear it, but anybody who has found THAT somebody will get why this song can still move me to tears.

6.  “You and I” Ingrid Michaelson

Even though I just found this song recently, it captures young love’s optimism and wild imagining so well I had to include it. It hints at that friendship and camaraderie that lies at the heart of many relationships, but especially mine.

7. The Beatles “In My Life”

This one isn’t just for Steve but for our whole little kingdom. It was playing on our CD player when I came home from the hospital with my first baby. In my life, I’ve loved them all, these people, my little clan. More than they will ever know.

8. “Hey, Stephen” by Taylor Swift

When my daughter was a tween, we both fell in love with Taylor Swift.  One day in the car we heard this song. From the front, I shouted over my shoulder,  “This is my song for Daddy!”  I don’t know what it says about the brain trust I’m raising that not a single child questioned how it could be our song when Taylor had just written it and clearly we had been around the block a couple times before that. Nevertheless, it is a love song for a boy named Stephen, and I’ve got me one of those.

9. “Come Away With Me” by Nora Jones

As of next week, we will tip the scales and teens will outnumber us.  While not a terrifying realization, it is a sobering one. We already play this song often, plot our getaways, and exchange meaningful glances over school projects and dirty dishes. This is the rolled-up sleeves, deep-in-the-trenches stage of parenting for us, but Nora takes us to that beautiful place we want to get back to together.

10. “Grow Old Along With Me” by Mary Chapin Carpenter

This song always gives me a catch in the throat when I remember that John Lennon not only never really got to record this song properly before he was killed, he never grew old with his sweetheart. God bless our love and all those like it that we all get our second acts, our quiet folding into old age together.

Feel free to add your own love song to the list!

-Erin