Perspective on the Hallmark holiday

I thought I’d been in love before. I thought I knew what love was. I got married. I thought that was love. But it was sick and it nearly destroyed me—not physically, but mentally. Ten years of struggle, of repeating that mantra that relationships are work and that nothing comes easy.

I remember sitting in my big house and looking around at all the stuff in it and thinking, “I am not in this house. This isn’t my place. I don’t belong here.” I lost myself in the effort of trying to make it work. Someone who claimed to love me, used the belief that I was supposed to work to make someone else happy, that I was supposed to sacrifice myself to that person’s will. It happened slow, it was subtle, but I disappeared. When I resisted, the mental attacks came, the guilt trips, the accusations of not being invested, the seeds of self-doubt sowed in unstable ground. And that is how I lost myself.

I remember the last day of my marriage quite clearly. It wasn’t easy. But, it did take this conscious thought. I had a choice. Was I to salvage this relationship, live up to the vows I took with all seriousness and absoluteness? To do that, I was going to have to kill off my soul. I knew this instinctively. The person I was could not survive this relationship. I could have killed my soul, the last spark of life burning inside me, and lived hollow and empty. My other choice was failure. Failing vows I’d made, failing myself, failing things I thought I could do, failing to do the work that I thought was required.

But in that failure, my soul could survive. I could live. This is the choice I made. I chose to give myself the love that no one else had. I chose to thrive.

Suddenly, I was free. My empty and hollow soul began to fill back up. I was happy. I could be myself again. I was suddenly not so alone. So today, on a hard day for so many people, I would like to tell all of you that you can be so much more alone when you’re denying yourself the right to live….just because society impresses upon people that we must “couple-up”.  I will tell you that while I laughed and played the bitter divorcee, I was happier being single than I had EVER been during my marriage. I learned to live again. I filled up my life with things to do, things I loved: work, friends, trips to places I’d never thought I would go. I set goals for myself and reached those goals—I didn’t reach some of those goals to, but I discovered that the benefits are always in the attempts.

Don’t let this holiday take that from you. Don’t let all these pictures of love and adoration and images of couples taint your soul and make it think that it’s less worthy. It took me a while to fill my soul back up. It took me a while to figure things out after that marriage.

To be honest, I would have sworn to you that love was an illusion created by not only Hallmark, but also by artists and musicians and poets. I would have told you that love meant sacrificing yourself and there was no way I was ever going to do that again. I refused to let myself believe.

However, life has a way of teaching me lessons. I’m grateful that I have learned how to listen. Because, two and a half years ago, in walked the biggest lesson of all.  Unexpected, unanticipated. I always had my door open for new friends, friends who could teach me things, friends who were interesting, friends who I could share things with. I didn’t believe in love so I certainly didn’t have my door open to it any more than it was open to rainbows, sparkles, unicorns and the color pink.

I met someone who’s soul belonged with mine. It’s not about work at all, apparently. That old cliché makes you think and do things that aren’t real. Doug Myers is the other half of my soul—which honestly was doing just fine, but I had no idea there was so much unrealized potential. I could have been happy the rest of my life, I could have felt fulfilled. There is nothing wrong with being single—life should be held on to no matter what. But I am lucky. Because my soul sings now. And there’s none of that bad stuff that I had before. I can be myself with this other half; just like I am by myself. There’s no pretending, there’s no acting. Just a smile from him makes me smile and makes my heart beat faster. And what makes me happy? When he is himself, when he does the things that makes him happy. I encourage him to be more of who he is, he encourages me to do the same. I love him. But I don’t feel like I’m in a relationship. I feel like he’s part of who I am. I cannot imagine me without him. There’s no sacrifice. There is only us.

I share this stuff.  Sappy and crappy. Because I know that this day is hard on many people. It’s hard because society tells you that you have to be with someone to be happy. That’s not the case. Always be true to yourself. Love is not another person, love is something that is inside you. So, you want flowers for Valentine’s Day? Go buy them for yourself. When I was single, and still today, if I want flowers, I go and buy them for myself. The flowers don’t smell better or look prettier if someone else gives them to you. You will say, I don’t know what I’m talking about because I’m crazy, stupid in love with this man I’ve let inside the walls around my heart. But I do know. I know that to live a life by society’s rules leads to making decisions that can destroy the essential you. When that person is gone, it’d be like cutting off the bruised sections of an apple—the good part of the apple doesn’t want to hook up with the bruised part because then everything gets ruined.

Is there someone out there for everyone? Maybe not. But that’s okay. Live free. Embrace life. Do good work. Be happy. Be your own Valentine first.