divorcing valentine’s day

I’m happy for you if you have happy feelings about happy relationships on happy occasions. That’s good.

This one is not for you.

This is for the separated, the divorced, the grieving, the abused, the dying. This is for the ones that aren’t failing, but their relationship sure is. This is for the ones that never did have the stars align, not yet anyway. This is for the ones that feel like it’s only going to take one more breath before the house of cards comes down. This is for the broken-hearted, the quieted, the lonely.

To you I will say that I agree; the Valentine’s section at Target is assaulting. You’re right, that’s too much red, pink, and it’s too bright and also ugly. I am not a child and neither are you. Leave me alone, hearts and cupids.

This too shall pass.

And then they will do it to us again next year, but by then we are going to care less. Things will be different. Change always comes. You can file the papers today or maybe tomorrow. Divorce Valentine’s Day. Then next year, when you walk past the red and hearts at Target, you will only have to think, “Oh, I used to know who you are…but I will ignore your trying to thwart me this time.”

Some of us are already lucky enough to not give a shit about Valentine’s Day, but if you are in a place where it still hurts, that’s okay. It doesn’t make you weak or “too sensitive”. It means you’re working through something, and that is always good.

As my friend Ann says, “Put your hand over your heart.”

Say with me,

I love you.

Oh, that feels weird. Try it again. Hand over heart. I love you.

Think about that. Trade Valentine’s Day in for Hand Over Heart Day. Decide to make it about you and you alone. Alone is not always bad, we know this. Create your own trial separation from all of these ideas of love coming from the outside. See how that feels.

This is an inside job, even for those of us “in love” or simply partnered, or struggling with someone who is supposed to be The One. None of us, single or togethered, have anything fulfilling and good if we don’t start with hand-over-heart love for ourselves. It’s been said and said and said; self-love, self-love, self-love, but what I’m saying is today is a good day to start living it in just this one small way. Hand over heart, I love you.

Thank you, Ann.

But wait. There are some of us that don’t have to do or think anything on this day or any day, not right now anyway. We are the grieving, the ones on the ground needing nothing but wound care. The people that need others to be what we already know about true love, today and every day — be service, show up, sit in the hardest things in the biggest struggles. Your hand is needed, moving from over your own heart, to their shoulder, maybe their back or their cheek or their head.

I’m here. I love you.

This is what every day is, another chance to do just a little better at loving ourselves and all others well. If you want to divorce Valentine’s Day, I think that’s maybe how you do it. I don’t know. This is not advice. This is simply a string of thoughts too early in the morning on hand-over-heart day. I love you.