A Personal History of Valentine's Day

It used to be that when a day like Valentine's Day rolled around (i.e. a day that wallowed in its own gooey ickiness) I used to wallow myself. Usually in a dark room, listening to some sort of depressing music.

Usually I'd spend nights like that remembering, or not remembering, as the mood struck me. But, more often than not, if I remembered, I would remember in a litany--a rosary prayer running through all the lost loves of my life.

I'd start in kindergarten, with that blond-haired firstgrader that I wrote an "I love you" note to, move rapidly through junior high & into the high school years...Travis from seminary, Matt, Dan (Dan I would spend some time on), Jason... It was a litany of loss, it was me focusing on pain, on what I didn't have.

It's strange, but I don't seem to do that anymore. It's not that I've suddenly gained the things that I longed for then--I haven't. I'm still single, and rather overwhelmingly likely to remain so for some time. I don't even think I'm necessarily happier than I was then. I really spend no time at all wandering around in a rosey cloud of joy.

I wonder if I'm just better at distracting myself now. I have easy access to the tv, a laptop with high-speed internet, and my own little mini library to lose myself in. Whenever I feel a spout of pain coming on, do I switch on my computer? Watch an amusing but rather soulless flash cartoon? Grab the latest escapist novel I've purchased from Amazon?

Or maybe, I just don't allow myself to grieve anymore. I'm embarrassed when I'm miserable, as if I don't have any right to be unhappy--as if I know better. And maybe I do. Maybe I realize that, as lonely and unfulfilled as life can be, I'm still okay. I'm way better off than the child in India who works all day in a sweat-shop and comes home at night to a mat in the street. I'm better off than the girl who lives her life at the end of a needle, or under the bottom of a shot glass.

I guess the answer is, I don't know. I think it's a mixture of all of the above. Fill in the bubble for answer "D." Or maybe "E" for 'unknown.' (Man, I've taken too many standardized tests.) I suppose I'm only writing about this because I'm kind of amazed to find myself here, on Valentine's Day, still sitting upright in a relatively well-lit room, eyes & cheeks completely dry, and the only music playing in the background the soundtrack to some tv show my sister's watching in the kitchen. I don't even think I've eaten chocolate today...

And that, more than anything else, really shows me how much I've changed.