My Belated Valentine
This was written on Valentine's Day and I didn't have the courage to publish it until I read it again. And now, I do and I think it's great.
February 14, 2008
I haven’t blogged in awhile so I guess today would be a good day to start again, Valentine’s Day. I am so happy today I have been jumping around all day in and out of my skin. Which makes it seem more like Halloween than Valentine’s for those around me. I have felt more love today than I ever have in previous years. Am I seeing a special someone right now? No. Am I dating this evening with a potential special someone? No. Am I sorry about that? A really big, resounding NO. My joy and happiness are a product of many years of effort, experience, persistence and patience to finally find that peace within, that acceptance borne of so many trials and tribulations, that you finally realize in the biggest “aha!” moment what all those self-help and inspirational books are saying: You are what matters. Loving yourself is all there is.
Valentine’s Day has always been what New Year’s Eve is to me, a big waste of time and money with unreal expectations for an evening that usually turns out to be less than climactic, in so many ways, literal and figurative. All those years of thinking of something to buy, something to do, what to wear, and that obligatory sex and lingerie routine, ugh! It’s not even fun. While I understand this may sound like sour grapes, it isn’t. It’s such a wondrous relief not to be bothered with dread and disappointment of an upcoming holiday. It makes no difference to me whether I’m available or not available.
In the last several years I remember two Valentine’s Days that sort of sum it up for me. One, was a relationship that I’d just begun a few months before and was still ambivalent about. He asked me what was my favorite song and I said, “Your Song by Elton John” not thinking anything about it. The next day, being a musician, he came to where I worked, a law office, and proceeded with the help of a friend, to serenade me with guitars, singing, “Your Song.” It was embarrassing and bold at the same time. As it turned out, this boyfriend was so full of himself he prided himself on always giving the perfect gift, either writing a song for you or writing some clever little booklet, whatever. It was always more of a gift for him so that you ‘d think he was just the greatest person in the world for writing you a song, serenading you or writing some book about you so that you’d have to agree what a great guy he was. Don’t get me wrong these are all nice things until you realize he’s showing everyone else what he did for you and they all think he’s great. In other words, you can’t argue with him, you can’t think of him as less than perfect, and you have to agree that he’s such an artistic genius, more so than you, that when the day comes and you think, why am I in this relationship, everyone thinks there must be something wrong with you. I didn’t have the heart to tell this guy that I’d been serenaded before with the same song, by a college boyfriend, who so far has been the only one to truly have stolen my heart. He had a friend wheel an upright piano to my dormitory door one evening while I was studying and a friend of ours accompanied him while he sang in a nervous, but not bad voice, “Your Song” to a stunned and wondrous dormitory outside my door. It was all the more wonderful a gift because he wasn’t a musician, just a guy putting himself on the line to try to tell me how much I meant to him. No one has made me feel more loved before or since.
The last Valentine’s day I had was a little more than a few years ago with another guy I’d been seeing for a few months and really didn’t want to see anymore. I didn’t have the heart to break up with him before Valentine’s Day but lessons are learned and I should have. He was the epitome of narcissism and disrespect. I abhorred the fact that I was even dating this guy although I knew he was transitional to begin with and somehow it escalated into something way out of control. He asked me what I wanted for Valentine’s Day. I said that dinner and a movie would be nice but nothing big or fancy. Instead I got a large vase and bouquet with a large balloon stating “I love you” delivered to me at a law office I just started working. It was the largest, most ostentatious bouquet I’ve ever seen and HEAVY! All he kept asking me was what did everyone say at work about it. He was more enamored with what others thought of his gift for me than the idea of giving it to me. If he really thought about me, he would have understood what an embarrassment it was to get that at work, a place where I pride myself on my private life being private, and how heavy it would be for me to carry that thing to my car, get it in the car and drive home with it without spilling the water or ruining the flowers. I never did get the dinner and a movie and all he did all weekend long was expect me to put out for him because he’d spent so much on the bouquet.
A few years ago, months after the painful break up with the aforementioned bouquet giver who didn’t even qualify to be considered a serious candidate for marriage much less a relationship, I asked myself an important question. What if I never had another relationship? What if, now, in the middle of my life, I never marry or even again have a long term relationship? Asking myself that question fifteen years before, I broke out in inconsolable tears, unable to even think or consider such a thing would happen. And praying it wouldn’t. I have gone through long periods in my life alone, without partnership, some of it by choice and some of it not by choice. In fact, I really thought I’d have been married by now for a few years, with a family and happily pursuing my career of choice. Well, disappointment after disappointment and none of those things have come to pass…as yet. I’ve also stopped wondering and thinking about it anymore. And those few years ago when I asked myself that question again, I realized the answer finally. I would be okay. My life is not worth any less, it’s not any less valid because I’m not part of a couple or I don’t have children. And no, I don’t have cats or dogs in my life taking the place of anyone or anything. I have me. The joyousness of realizing that is so gratifying to me right now. That’s where the joy comes from, the real singing and dancing. I can do whatever I want, whenever I want and never again, whether I choose to be in a relationship or alone, will I ever feel like I have to do something I don’t want to do, be with someone who doesn’t respect and appreciate me, or have to suffer another over-hyped marketing holiday spending time and money I don’t have. Now that is a true celebration of love.
February 14, 2008
I haven’t blogged in awhile so I guess today would be a good day to start again, Valentine’s Day. I am so happy today I have been jumping around all day in and out of my skin. Which makes it seem more like Halloween than Valentine’s for those around me. I have felt more love today than I ever have in previous years. Am I seeing a special someone right now? No. Am I dating this evening with a potential special someone? No. Am I sorry about that? A really big, resounding NO. My joy and happiness are a product of many years of effort, experience, persistence and patience to finally find that peace within, that acceptance borne of so many trials and tribulations, that you finally realize in the biggest “aha!” moment what all those self-help and inspirational books are saying: You are what matters. Loving yourself is all there is.
Valentine’s Day has always been what New Year’s Eve is to me, a big waste of time and money with unreal expectations for an evening that usually turns out to be less than climactic, in so many ways, literal and figurative. All those years of thinking of something to buy, something to do, what to wear, and that obligatory sex and lingerie routine, ugh! It’s not even fun. While I understand this may sound like sour grapes, it isn’t. It’s such a wondrous relief not to be bothered with dread and disappointment of an upcoming holiday. It makes no difference to me whether I’m available or not available.
In the last several years I remember two Valentine’s Days that sort of sum it up for me. One, was a relationship that I’d just begun a few months before and was still ambivalent about. He asked me what was my favorite song and I said, “Your Song by Elton John” not thinking anything about it. The next day, being a musician, he came to where I worked, a law office, and proceeded with the help of a friend, to serenade me with guitars, singing, “Your Song.” It was embarrassing and bold at the same time. As it turned out, this boyfriend was so full of himself he prided himself on always giving the perfect gift, either writing a song for you or writing some clever little booklet, whatever. It was always more of a gift for him so that you ‘d think he was just the greatest person in the world for writing you a song, serenading you or writing some book about you so that you’d have to agree what a great guy he was. Don’t get me wrong these are all nice things until you realize he’s showing everyone else what he did for you and they all think he’s great. In other words, you can’t argue with him, you can’t think of him as less than perfect, and you have to agree that he’s such an artistic genius, more so than you, that when the day comes and you think, why am I in this relationship, everyone thinks there must be something wrong with you. I didn’t have the heart to tell this guy that I’d been serenaded before with the same song, by a college boyfriend, who so far has been the only one to truly have stolen my heart. He had a friend wheel an upright piano to my dormitory door one evening while I was studying and a friend of ours accompanied him while he sang in a nervous, but not bad voice, “Your Song” to a stunned and wondrous dormitory outside my door. It was all the more wonderful a gift because he wasn’t a musician, just a guy putting himself on the line to try to tell me how much I meant to him. No one has made me feel more loved before or since.
The last Valentine’s day I had was a little more than a few years ago with another guy I’d been seeing for a few months and really didn’t want to see anymore. I didn’t have the heart to break up with him before Valentine’s Day but lessons are learned and I should have. He was the epitome of narcissism and disrespect. I abhorred the fact that I was even dating this guy although I knew he was transitional to begin with and somehow it escalated into something way out of control. He asked me what I wanted for Valentine’s Day. I said that dinner and a movie would be nice but nothing big or fancy. Instead I got a large vase and bouquet with a large balloon stating “I love you” delivered to me at a law office I just started working. It was the largest, most ostentatious bouquet I’ve ever seen and HEAVY! All he kept asking me was what did everyone say at work about it. He was more enamored with what others thought of his gift for me than the idea of giving it to me. If he really thought about me, he would have understood what an embarrassment it was to get that at work, a place where I pride myself on my private life being private, and how heavy it would be for me to carry that thing to my car, get it in the car and drive home with it without spilling the water or ruining the flowers. I never did get the dinner and a movie and all he did all weekend long was expect me to put out for him because he’d spent so much on the bouquet.
A few years ago, months after the painful break up with the aforementioned bouquet giver who didn’t even qualify to be considered a serious candidate for marriage much less a relationship, I asked myself an important question. What if I never had another relationship? What if, now, in the middle of my life, I never marry or even again have a long term relationship? Asking myself that question fifteen years before, I broke out in inconsolable tears, unable to even think or consider such a thing would happen. And praying it wouldn’t. I have gone through long periods in my life alone, without partnership, some of it by choice and some of it not by choice. In fact, I really thought I’d have been married by now for a few years, with a family and happily pursuing my career of choice. Well, disappointment after disappointment and none of those things have come to pass…as yet. I’ve also stopped wondering and thinking about it anymore. And those few years ago when I asked myself that question again, I realized the answer finally. I would be okay. My life is not worth any less, it’s not any less valid because I’m not part of a couple or I don’t have children. And no, I don’t have cats or dogs in my life taking the place of anyone or anything. I have me. The joyousness of realizing that is so gratifying to me right now. That’s where the joy comes from, the real singing and dancing. I can do whatever I want, whenever I want and never again, whether I choose to be in a relationship or alone, will I ever feel like I have to do something I don’t want to do, be with someone who doesn’t respect and appreciate me, or have to suffer another over-hyped marketing holiday spending time and money I don’t have. Now that is a true celebration of love.
posted by Maria @ 8:07 PM
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