Hoping for a Letter from St. Valentine

I used to hate Valentine's Day. Did I say “hate?” How about quietly absorbing barbs of hostility? Maybe they were just misfired arrows of cupid that are as likely to be fired out of hate, missing their mark. They were not intended for me, but I was injured by the careless volley of arrows.

The one fortune cookie message I remember from all the cookies I have cracked said this: A good friend is a gift that one gives one's self. I am not so sure the same can be said for falling in love, hence the cupid analogy, but it might be healthy to adopt that mental construct.

Regardless of the construct I choose, it can be said that I have spent many Valentine's Days, and a good portion of other parts of my life, being neither a recipient nor giver of that gift. It was not that I did not have the desire, but, depending on your philosophy or construct, I was not sufficiently desired—by myself or anyone else. And I hated Valentine's Day.

Many years past the trauma of grade school Valentines in the cereal box, the holiday became one of heightened loneliness. It was one thing not to be able to afford a lot of the goodies that conveyed the evolved meaning of Valentine's Day and the kind of love that seemed to count. It was bad enough to not have anyone to whom to give them.

Yes, I used to HATE HATE HATE Valentine's Day, for a lot of reasons.  It has been a long journey to get to a place where it is a benign celebration of recognition and to let it give me a space where I can just get the designated space to acknowledge my relationships, with my son, at times a couple of healthy, unambiguous  friendships, and maybe two or just one relationship I've had. 

I know my spin-off emotions from my bad experience was as damaging to the good spaces others have had around it.  Even now, I can see that it is an institution that is charged with mutual and unmutual sexual exploitation, just plain exploitation. We still live with the expectation that people will measure the significance of love based on the amount of money they spend on their object of desire. Most persistently for me, it has been a reminder that so many people were into the day, had objects of at least manufactured desire, and that it was a game that I largely did not get to play. 

The first thing that happened that allowed me to at least participate in uttering the word "Valentine" was finding out that St. Valentine was a noted, prolific letter writer. When I was in graduate school and for a while after, I too was a prolific letter writer. I would celebrate that around the holiday rather than the other crap. 

Many years later,one of the sweetest things that happened around Valentine's Day was getting a ficus from Ginger.  This was long before there was an inkling, in my mind, that anything romantic would ever happen between us. Her gift was a very kind gesture from a friend: it was so sweet. 

The gesture was also profoundly symbolic of the fleeting hints of romance that visited our friendship in later days: not just the giving, but the vehicle of demonstrating affection.  A ficus? 

A ficus is very, very hard to take care of.  I have no green thumb.  It started to fade.  I tried keeping it up, but... well, it's a ficus.  It's end came when I went away for a week and left my brother Michael to take care of it.  When I came back, it was done for.  It was a ficus.  It should have been a sign to me of what she was capable of in love and relationship. 

And I did recognize that getting this ficus wasn't much different than the common practices of the living institution. Flowers and chocolate—those are the currency of love too often.  But flowers are dead.  They are cut and are not sustainable expressions.  They look fantastic for a while, but they whither and die.  Die soon. 

Chocolate does not provide nourishment.   Sugar and caffeine.  It won't make us strong.  It won't do much if we have it in any quantity that will fill our stomachs that won't wind us up being very unhealthy.

Flowers and chocolate just being two of the items along the continuum of more expensive items and some very unfortunate expectations that have taught us to believe that love is a function and measure of what we buy.

So, I've been trying to build something different around the holiday.  It has not been a good one for a lot of us.  Honestly, for the past 30 years, with the exception of a couple, it has been a relief that I did not have anyone for whom to perform such obligations.  Secretly, though, being left out dug into my heart.

I don't know how this Valentine's Day will turn out. It has to be a balance between my highfalutin moral objections and taking the excuse to express some joy. The day is arbitrary,  but at the same time,  my reaction against it is just as contrived and maybe I should not let it keep me from taking and benefiting from one of those social goods that is rightfully mine. I have some Valentines to write and some people who should get them. Time to pull out the cereal box.