Valentine's Day - Revisited...

Well, here we are again, on this most dreaded Hallmark holiday.  I hate it less today than I have in years past.  But I still resent being told that today is the day to love, and it should look like some completely unrealistic idea of romantic love and if you don’t have that, well, then sucks to be you.

So much pressure.  So many expectations.  I didn’t have any this year, and I have been pleasantly surprised.  I received a beautiful bouquet yesterday from a great man I am dating.  I feel blessed and lucky...and like, for me, Valentine’s Day and love in general has turned the proverbial corner.

No, I haven’t fallen head over heels...but I feel like I have made great progress in my ability to love and accept love in return.  And the people I allow into my life or seek love from have improved exponentially!  This year this superficial holiday feels like it remains in its proper perspective and I can enjoy it for the occasion it is instead of censuring it for all that it is not, or all that everyone seems to insist it become.

This year I feel like I have arrived in a place where I have so much love in my life.  In my home, with my family, with my friends, my pets, and the potential for romantic love being something real and lasting.  What is changed?  Me.  I am different.

I do not crave romantic love and connection like I once did.  I do not believe it is something I can make happen.  I can, instead, only learn to love myself more deeply each day and hope that all my effort one day provides me an opportunity to give that love to someone worthy, respectful and capable of loving me back in the same way I love him.

This year just lands different mostly because I am different.  There are no holes or gaps I am trying to fill within myself.  I have filled up all the man shaped holes in my soul with self respect, care and love.  I don’t need a partner, I want one.  And I have been willing to wade through my own pain, heartbreak, suffering, loss and grief to arrive at a place where I feel complete, whole and in tact in a way I haven’t ever before.  I no longer need to find solace in another.  But look forward to an opportunity to care, show up and give of myself freely when that person arrives.

Love, like so many other things in this life, is a practice.  I get better at it every single day because I work at it.  I loosen the grip of attachment, work with the demands of desire, patiently endure my own trauma and its not so thin tendrils from the past.  And I do the work, each day, to free myself to become a more loving, kind and open version of myself.  It has been quite an amazing journey...a lot of ups and downs but fuck if it hasn’t been fucking spectacular!

This year, I am not hating on this day.  I am not all about it either.  It is just another day I get to practice being a more healed, more loving version of myself.  And I get to practice sharing that with others who show me, through their behavior, that they too are capable of doing the work love entails and, in fact, demands.

Loving is easy, it is the living that is hard.  It is never hard to love someone, it is, however, hard to live with them day in and day out, year after year and keep the love at the forefront.  Love for yourself and the love for all those lucky others in your life...

Love has always been there.  I was just damaged in my ability to access it, appreciate it and give it freely without conditions and strings.  Motherhood helped.  Recovery helped.  But it was through heartbreak that I truly learned what is risked and what is gained when you give your heart to someone...and the result of those seemingly futile endeavors that blow up in your face.

I claim progress, not perfection. I love me today and I am going to call that a fucking win.  And I feel the most ready to love another that I ever have before...I will keep working on my healing and loving and trust that God will put it to good use.  Love is never wasted.  Neither is kindness.

This year I celebrate all the love in my life, the growth I experience and the joy I feel every day stretching myself in the direction of good, loving action.

Love is an artful practice that can only be honed over time by endeavoring each day to love the fucked up, incongruent, laughable person you are, have been and will be one day.  I pray that each of you feel special, loved and adored today...if not by another human, then by your cat, dog, guinea pig, chicken, horse, or child.  For it is with these other beings, these most vulnerable creatures, that I have found my tender broken, but healing heart and have found in them the strength and fortitude to keep going in my life’s long journey towards romantic love.

May your journey be one of inspiration, faith, joy and most of all love...

Happy Valentine’s Day to all...

Again, still...