For some, Valentine’s Day is the celebration of one of two Catholic saints with the same name.

One of the Saint Valentines left a special note to a woman with the cure to her blindness when he was imprisoned for illegally practicing medicine and curing the poor. That note, signed “Valentine,” is said to have sparked the tradition of Valentine’s Day cards.

The other Saint Valentine story is perhaps more appropriate for this holiday celebrating love. This saint is said to have performed secret marriages when the government at the time deemed them illegal as a plot to keep men in battle without the distraction of wives and families.

For others, feelings related to Feb. 14 are more comparable to Al Capone’s violent St. Valentine’s Day Massacre that tore Chicago apart in 1929.

Whether one’s heart is celebrating the saints’ love or feeling massacred by the “Hallmark Holiday’s” annoying surplus of affection, the true meaning accompanying the traditional holiday is love.

It isn’t chocolates in a red, heart-shaped box or overpriced roses. It isn’t jewelry, perfume, cologne or stuffed animals.

Valentine’s Day is a time to express love; it doesn’t mean everyone needs to rush out and find a “significant other” by Friday (leaving just enough time to wait in line for a dozen roses before Saturday begins).

Celebrating Valentine’s Day shouldn’t involve more than making those you love aware of your feelings.

It is a day to spend time with and express feelings to friends, families, boyfriends, girlfriends, fiances, husbands, wives and children. Saturday should not have the power to dishearten the portion of society independent of a particular significant other.

As the meaning behind love continually adapts to meet a commercial, superficial society, it’s better to celebrate those in your life you really love than fall into a greeting card corporation ritual.

Love is unconditional, strong enough that a person would look beyond his or her own feelings to ensure happiness for a loved one as Humphrey Bogart did for Ilsa in “Casablanca,” from “This looks like the beginning of a beautiful relationship,” to the pain of departing, “Of all the gin joints of all the towns of all the world, she had to walk into mine.” Despite his love for her, he let her walk out of his gin joint with her husband so the two would be safe and she would be happy.

Love isn’t perfect.

It sometimes is painful like when, in “An Affair to Remember,” Cary Grant spent an entire day in the rain atop the Empire State Building awaiting Deborah Kerr, who could not make it because as she was crossing the busy Manhattan street looking upward at where her love was awaiting, she was struck by a car.

It goes far beyond classic romance movies.

Love is irrational. It can cause incomparable happiness and sadness. It is emotional, intense and empowering.

It isn’t determined by relationships. Titles cannot determine a feeling so overwhelming.

Saturday is a day to celebrate having such a powerful emotion.

It’s a time to be thankful we’re given the opportunity to connect with other people and to fall in love.

It’s a time to let people know we’re grateful to receive their love and happy to share ours with them.

This Valentine’s Day is the perfect time to find the ones you love and say “Here’s looking at you, kid.”