Loves

It is the fifth of my second favorite month of the year (my first favorite being April, of course, because us Aries types live in selfish adoration of our birth months!) For those who are blessed with relationship love in their lives, February is the perfect opportunity to celebrate the new year with a Love Holiday which divides the month exactly down the middle. However in speaking with my friend AB yesterday on the phone I discovered that she, much like I've experienced, encounters disdain and dread leading into the Love Holiday (nothing against her doting husband MB, of course). Who cooks for who, who buys gifts and what gifts, who looks longingly into whose eyes from the minute the work day ends through the remainder of the evening because This is the day to show how much love you have, if no other day of the year it's displayed. It's mandatory, according to the idea of the Holiday, to express love with the most persuasive impact possible and dress the package with props. Flowers, cards, candy, hearts. I'd like to say Craig and I have had a perfect Valentine's Day. I would wholeheartedly be lying to say so, so instead I confess, we really have had nothing but miserable Valentine's Days. Unfortunately I verified this by poking around in old journals. This year I intend to correct that. I want to embrace the fact that whatever greeting card company decided to invent a Holiday for people who love each other did do a good thing. February is a beautiful time to feel all the love you have. The year is still new, but by this time routines promised to be implemented in the new year ought to be in place (Craig and I worked out 3 times this week, including weight-lifting!) and spring is peeking from around the corner. Stores are decked in red all month (what's not to love about the color red, lover or no lover?) Football is finally over and baseball is very near, with a little college championship basketball coming soon to kill some time. On a personal level, February is not adjacent to my birth month so I still have a little time to spend pondering how I spent 20-whatever the preceding year. See how comforting February is? Nevertheless, I've also been overwhelmed recently with the feeling of being blessed to have Craig. He came into my life in such a haphazard fashion, strutting through the office in Detroit relocated from Indiana somewhere and displaying just blatant amounts and degrees of machismo. I didn't care for him when I met him one bit. But as the story unfolded itself, I learned more about myself by spending time with him than I ever had before. New interests were tapped constantly, new desires were unearthed in me. I never knew, for instance, just how intrigued I would be to see so many places. I had no idea I could ever be entertained by the energy at a sporting event. These are the kinds of things that happen when two people meet, date, decide things feel more right together than being apart. All the time Craig and I spent away from each other, the distance between us beginning in April of 2002 when he left for the East Coast, only fed right into our relationship. And now that we're finally together, this being our second whole year of it, I'm still learning. I want to borrow February this year, not just Valentine's Day but the whole month, to learn even more about what being with him has shown me and given me. I barely remember a time where I didn't know him. We spent the greater portion of 23 years not knowing each other but that time is so far away from me, it manages to dissipate in the greater picture which is what will take place in our future. Even still, what takes place in our present. It's a great justice to those of us who do have this kind of love that Valentine's Day is there. Even if, as in past cases with AB as she mentioned and with me, Valentine's Day winds up being this great big let down, its mere existence reminds those of us who have it that we're fortunate to have found a place in someone else's heart where we can curl up and rest, or swell with pride in ourselves or in that other person, or collapse with happiness and anticipation of what will happen around the bend. I do not profess that every individual will ever find exactly what is right, but I am firm in the belief that when it shows up at your doorstep, let it in, and hold onto it as if your each breath depends on it being there. I spent a great deal of time persisting Craig, and much of that time he would have rather I had not. But now, and I'm somewhat speaking for him, making assumptions without him sitting right here, I wouldn't change a second of those attempts to get from him what I always wanted to be there. Because now, naturally, we're the safest and happiest we've ever been. The work put forth to get there was all worth the absolute lift of my heart when he walks into a room. The content way I can lean into his arm. The smile I feel all the way through when I see him happy about something. I'm going to make this Valentine's Day our best, this February. To everyone who has this person in their lives, if you don't express it year round, take this one opportunity this month to really let that person know. You're happy they're around. *Editor's Note (I have a live-in editor who prompted me to mention this)...the painting above is titled The Kiss by Gustav Klimt. Fairly popular, even still. Shows up on t-shirts and calendars. But it is so romantic, possibly the most romantic painting ever. Craig commented, "Looks like they're hanging out in a sleeping bag!" He is impossibly adorable.