Valentines Vicariousness

Superficial Love

Ah Valentine’s Day: Where everything’s made up and the points don’t matter! Wait, sorry, that’s the tag line for Whose Line Is It Anyway

although, if we’re being honest, Valentine’s Day is kind of a joke as it is. The whole idea is that this is the one day of the year where you’re supposed to show your love for someone, often times just a meaningless person you’ve asked to be “your valentine” so you’re not miserable and alone. The entire concept of loving someone for just one day of the year, let alone showing it through monetary avenues and commercialized, unoriginal ideas, is simply ridiculous.

Saint Valentine, for which the day is named and remembered, was a third century Roman of whom very little is known. What they do know is that he was a martyr – that’s right, he died for what he loved. The only other well known information is that since the Middle Ages, he has been associated with courtly love.

So here we are, celebrating the memory of a man who gave his life for what he loved, and who in life was associated with courtly love, by means of over-priced teddy bears, heart-shaped plastic boxes of candy (half of which no one actually likes and ultimately throws away), and flowers that any other day we could buy for a minimum of half the price. It’s a money-making fiasco that allows ‘peace of mind’ for one day of the year, or absolutely destroys all hope single people have for their futures.

Saint Valentine died for what he loved, but we’re buying flowers for the same reason? I’m hard pressed to find any value in that. At this point, all the women reading this are rolling their eyes or thinking, frustratedly, “ugh, men will never understand” or “but it means so much to us!” to which I say this: You’ve been raised in a culture that says flowers mean I love you, I’m thinking of you, I care about you. Here’s the dirty truth: when a guy buys you flowers, it’s because either A) he had to (like on Valentine’s Day) or B) he passed the vendor on his way home and thought it would earn him some extra brownie points he either needs or could hold onto for future withdrawal. More often than not, he wasn’t thinking of you all day, nor is he the sweetest guy in the planet. But, thanks to commercialized love like Valentine’s Day, he was able to fool you. Flowers don’t mean I love you any more than a happy meal does. Sure, it’s a nice gesture, but here’s a man whose life was centered around the study and encouragement of chivalry. All women ever talk about is how chivalry is dead, but here you are accepting stuffed animals and money in place of 3 simple words! Chivalry isn’t dead, ladies, your standards are.

Can you even begin to imagine dying for something you love? The simple thought of giving your life to protect and stand up for something that means that much to you is beyond my world of understanding. For those of you out there truly in love, maybe you get it. For those of you out there who remember holding your children in your arms for the first time, you definitely do. Me? Sure I’ve been in love and have no remorse or ill feelings towards any of them. But give my life? That’s a stretch. Love is such a binding, mind-blowing commitment and dedication that will change your life and the way you think of it forever. It’s in no means a bad thing, don’t misunderstand me. Just be careful what you wish for.

I’m not saying flowers are bad, nor is it like I’ve never bought them. All men are not evil, slimy scoundrels, and all women are not clueless flakes. I’m also not telling you to go play in traffic to prove how strongly you feel about someone, but what I am saying is this:

If you truly desire a love defined by money and candy, well, you’ll get it. And I’m sorry for you. But if that’s all you ever hope for and all that makes you happy, you’ll never understand love. Not true love, anyway.

So to all the single people out there, keep your heads held high – embrace the loneliness that you previously expected, and let that emotion fuel the movement to start loving yourself, the first step to falling in love with someone else.

And to those so lucky to hold someone you care for close – hold them a little longer, hug them a little tighter, and just appreciate who they are and what you have. Because ultimately, that’s more indicative of love than any superficial teddy bear money could ever buy.

The Girl You Hate To Love

“You love the Sox, but have they ever loved you back?”

Falling in love is easy. Loving the fall? Not so much. Everyone dates the wrong person. You have to, because, if you don’t, you’ll never know the right one. Sometimes, the wrong person and the right person are the same, separated by some semblance of time, space and contingency.  Sometimes, you only ‘date’ that person in your mind. Sometimes you’re thirty, in your parents’ basement, and your lunch still has no crust. Sometimes, you’re spoiled with an incredible relationship, incredible person, or incredible stipulation. Sometimes you’ve settled for less than what you deserve, others you deserve much less than has been settled for. Sometimes you win, other times you don’t. Sometimes circumstance trumps what is earned, and sometimes what is earned trumps circumstance. Sometimes it’s perfect, so it’s not; others, it’s not perfect, therefore it is. Sometimes the world is just not ready for what you have to offer, what you want to give, what you long to love and be  part of. More often than not, the ‘world’ is not a ‘what’, but a ‘who’.

 

And then there’s that one person. Not ‘The One”. No, the other one. The one you’re not supposed to be with. On paper, it’s great; in person, it’s greater. You laugh, smile, skip through meadows and fields and maybe even listen to everything the other has to say and enjoy it. Your chemistry is undeniable, unmatchable, and makes up for the terrible grade you got in Chem 101 your freshman year of college. You have all of these wonderful, incredible and glorious things, until you don’t. Suddenly, the sun begins to hide behind something you can’t see. Laughing is no longer happy, smiles fade away and meadows turn to thorn bushes. It’s as if the world is spinning on a different axis and the atmosphere has completely changed. You’re lost in a place you used to call ‘home’, but this home is certainly not where the heart is. No, certainly not, because the heart has gone missing: ripped out, stolen quite literally from under your nose, tossed aside and trampled.

As you wander along this new, paradoxical world you once thought you knew, you question what you believe. Were the laughs, smiles, skipping and fields true, or just a dream glorified by inception of something you thought you had and wanted? Are the rainbows really what is beautiful, or is storm that brought them to light the real holder of beauty?

“THE EDGE, there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.”- Hunter S. Thompson

Just when it appears there is nothing left to hold on to you find hope, no longer abstract and suddenly tangible, and cling to it. Lost in a world they call ‘love’ is a wonderfully, terrifying predicament, depending on the day. So you go back to what you know, or what you think you know, or what you think you once thought you knew, and look for more tangibility. Upon searching, however, you can only grasp to enigma, and, as your only option, you choose to do so. In time this grip loosens and eventually is lost all together, so you fall. On the way down the process is repeated, and to those viewing from the looking glass the efforts have become futile, if not altogether fallacious. You can’t explain it to them, though, because they haven’t yet gone over. So you keep falling, endlessly, repeatedly grabbing at hope, hoping for different results.

 

The Red Sox just got swept by the lowly Blue Jays, are last in the division, and through 96 games have lost as many as they’ve won. Times have changed, folks, but time hasn’t ended. If insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results, don’t call me crazy. Call me a lover. A fighter. A Red Sox fan.

 

When you’ve reached the end of your line, tie a knot in it, and hold on. Hope.