St, Valentine will not be denied

People are sometimes surprised that one of my favorite holidays is Valentine's Day. I get it, since I also have a satirical bent toward aspects of the holiday. In general, people sometimes confuse my satirical or sarcastic humor for dislike of something, and sometimes that is the case, but maybe just as often, I find humor in satire of things of which I'm very fond, as well. Isn't it the case that everything is, in one way or another, fucking ridiculous? While sometimes, simultaneously, sacred and precious? 

Limited Edition

Fundamentally, falling in love has provided me with some of the core experiences of my life, provided access to the divine, inspired a lot of my creative behavior, brought adventure and surprise, kicked me into areas of intense growth that I would have avoided otherwise, and more. Since I'm a flaming cis het, it's also brought me a lot of understanding of the extraordinary challenges women face. I don't know exactly why such remarkable, intelligent, intense, heart-centered, visionary and passionately excellent women have seen fit to throw their lot in with me, but so they have, eventually to varying degrees of chagrin. 

The experience of romantic love has also provided me with the worst suffering of my life. It's an existential kind of suffering, and some might say that, if love lost is the worst I've suffered, I've been lucky. I'd say that may well be, but it could also be that anyone who might judge it thus hasn't had the experience in quite the same way I have. Some might also say that, having been destroyed by the failure of romantic love, I ought to stop being open-hearted in that direction, and be sensible, and (drumroll for the American idea of strength) "get over it and move on." Even if I were able to accomplish this Herculean feat of utter emotional death, I don't want to. Some of my recovery friends, suspiciously cynical and bitter about love, seem to think it's a problem to be solved and done away with, or grown out of, or 12-stepped away. This feels untrue and unfortunate to me. Growing toward loving the beloved in more and more unconditional dimensions instead seems more legit. 

A friend of mine and I were lamenting various vicissitudes of the heart the other night over dinner, and both of us gradually realized we wouldn't change a damn thing. The weird hypothetical, "if you could go back, knowing what you know now, would you change anything?" We both grudgingly admitted the answer would be, no. Not a thing changed. In some cases, so precious and unforgettable that we'd not trade a single nanosecond of any of it. That case is usually also the one that is most painful, as if the combination is a law of the universe. Tell me the universe doesn't understand satire. 

Anyway, behind the crass commercialization and goopy sentimentality masquerading as love, there's magic, life, blood, compassion, tenderness, risk taking, humility, deep mysteries, story, real guts and courage. It seems a shame to me that many respond to the wounds, the pain, and the loss with the understandable impulse of "fuck that, I hope I never, ever catch feels for someone ever again." I get it, believe me, but there's the whole trip out of the dark that I think sometimes gets by-passed, and that's a loss much greater than the loss of the love itself. To think it's possible to be safe in love is laughable. To think it's possible to encounter another human being so tenderly and yet not put risk right at the front of things is foolish. The ability to love is directly proportional to the ability to grieve, and that just seems to be the way of things. The bad news is loss is a part of all of it. The good news is we know how to grieve, grief is perfectly natural and an inherent skill we have, if we just give it space to breathe and give it time and honor it. 

I like to pay attention when I'm in love, and I'm devoted, and I like the romantic rituals of cards, flowers, gifts, the romantic dinner, the tenderness and regard that brings two people to acknowledge each other as mutually extraordinary, for each other. I like to learn about the beloved, to listen and to see, to be seen. My eyes are full of Moon, when it's working, but not in that weird way where the actual human disappears. I'm unashamed to admit it, obviously. I'm learning to live without it, but how could it not feel like a lack? I don't think we get over it and move on. I think, if we're attentive, we just get more skilled at living in spite of impermanence. The absent beloved is no longer a problem to be solved, but just the way things are. It's a form of cowardice for me that I don't want to enact, to try to "get rid" of the beloved, or replace, or reject. It is more a way I want to live to make room for the reality, make a home for the sorrow and loss, but also be grateful for what was possible. 

To stay tender.