Celebrating Love

So this is Valentine’s week and I am all in for celebrating love.  The first thing I decided to do was take a Facebook hiatus for the week.

Why no FB?  Well, for starters there are a lot of unhappy people on there downing the holiday. *shrug* To each their own, I guess.  Second, FB has started asking questions like: How well do you know [insert name on fb friends’ list].  Ummmm, FB that ain’t your business.  I don’t know you like that, FB.  Yeah.  It is getting really weird on FB.  Lastly, all the Whitney mourning.  It is so strange.  I was fine until I watched the Dateline special on her last night.  Then they showed one pic of her standing at a mic.  You could only make out her silhouette and I lost it.  I boo hooed! *smh sadly*

So much negative energy on there.  People mad because people are mourning Whitney’s death.  People mad because people are mad because they are mourning Whitney’s death.  And just people who seem to stay mad no matter what is going on in the world.  So a FB hiatus for the week is definitely in order.

I’ll post CCW1’s story next week.  I’m all about celebrating love this week.

I was struck with some thoughts last night watching Dateline.  They played Whitney’s rendition of The Greatest Love and it hit me when I heard these lines: The greatest love of all is easy to achieve. Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.

It is true, the greatest love of all is loving yourself but it is NOT easy to achieve.  Or perhaps it just wasn’t easy for me.  I use to concentrate on all my flaws so much how in the world could anyone like/love me with all that was wrong with me.  From my teens and into my 20s I use to hide my smile behind a hand because of my gaped, bucked toothed smile.

Now I think my smile is one of my nicer attributes because when I’m smiling and/or laughing I am happy and being happy is a good thing.  My smile may not be picture perfect but it is genuine and that makes it as pretty as anyone else’s smile.

It has been a long and difficult road to here.  I truly am amazed to be here sometimes.  I use to cry lonely tears in my 30s when I was alone again.  I wanted my Heathcliff.  No, not Bronte’s Heathcliff but Cosby’s Heathcliff. *sigh*  There just aren’t enough of them to go around for one.  For another, back then I didn’t like or love myself enough to have even drawn one to me.

I use to cry for loving arms to hold me tight at night.  Now I just wrap my loving arms around myself and go to sleep.  I sleep pretty darn good nowadays.

See, I can’t fall in love with just any man.  I need a man who will love me just as much as I’d love him.  A man who has been looking for real love just like me and knows how precious it is.  A man who celebrates love once he finds it because he knows just how precious it is and how hard it is to find.  He is content with his life and is seeking only experiences and people who will enrich his life because that is where I am now.  To paraphrase the Bible, I’m awaiting a man with whom I am equally yoked.

What if he never shows up? *shrug* I’m still good.  I’m not saying I don’t need a man because that would be a bald faced lie.  We all need companionship regardless of our sexual orientation.  We all need to connect intimately with another human being.  Intimately does not equal sexually to me.  It means something so much more.  I know what it means to me and the man that I would be with would know it as well.  No need to spell it out here.

Yeah.  I know a lot of people have a problem with how commercial Valentine’s Day has become.  But that is just what the retailers wish it to be.  That doesn’t mean that is all it has to be about.  I declare for human beings to swear they are so smart we can be so dumb and narrow minded most of the time.  Just because someone wants you to spend $1,000 you don’t have doesn’t mean you have to spend it.

I love diamonds and sparkles but if the man I’m with doesn’t have it like that, I’m good.  That does not, however, mean he does nothing for Valentine’s Day.  It just means he’s going to have to think outside the box.

One of my favorite episodes of the Cosby Show was when Cliff, Elvin, and Martin competed to see who could be the most romantic.  They couldn’t spend more than $25 on the gift.  My favorite gift was Elvin’s of all people.  He started out as such a jerk but then changed over time until he was someone you wouldn’t mind be married to. *chuckle*  Anyway he bought Sondra a necklace with a pearl symbolizing each year of their marriage.  He would add a pearl for every wedding anniversary.  *sniffs*

I do not care if Elvin and Sondra divorced, as long as it wasn’t for something like cheating, Sondra will hold onto that necklace if her heart is anything like mine.  To me, each pearl would symbolize a year of living and loving, of trials, and tribulations.  Each pearl would be a reminder of each precious year of our lives together.

Time passes so fast that sometimes you don’t realize how fast it is moving.  You start to take things and people for granted.  Each time I looked at that necklace, it would be a reminder not to take time or the people I spend my time with for granted.  It would also mean so much more that I can’t really express.  This thing we call language is still so imperfect.

Still, all of that for a mere $25?  Yeah.  Think outside the box.  Not to is just lazy in my book and if that is the case, how much does this person really appreciate your love?

Case and point, BFL’s daughter got married a few years ago.  She called me to vent.  It seems her daughter had shown her the wedding dress.  She found it in a catalog.  It was a backless, strapless, animal print dress with a slit up the front and back.

*blank stare*

I tried to picture it and couldn’t.  When she drove down for our monthly lunch she brought the catalog.  It was as bad as she described it.  She and her husband had stood firm and told their daughter they would not be attending any wedding where she dressed like that.  So the parents ended up buying the dress and a very pretty one at that.  Her daughter loved it.

So BFL asked her daughter why she picked the other dress.  BFL’s daughter’s answer:  He was pressuring me not to spend a lot of money on a dress and to get married at the justice of the peace.  I didn’t want to do it that way but that was the only way he’d agree.  So I picked that dress because I was angry that I wasn’t getting the wedding I wanted.

Her parents and she pulled together a lovely wedding that was officiated by the bride’s grandmother.  Unfortunately, the marriage didn’t last a year.  He didn’t treasure her and she didn’t feel treasured.  It was doomed before it started.

So yes, I want the best from a man in every way he is able and every day he is able.  Because I’m grown up enough to know that sometimes he can’t be what I need all the time.  Just like I’m not going to be able to give him my best every day.  That’s what Valentine’s Day does, makes up for the shorts, though they may have been necessary at the time.

According to many everyday should be Valentine’s Day but that just ain’t reality.  Everyday isn’t Valentine’s Day for Heathcliff and Claire or Stephen and Elysse Keaton (Family Ties).  Real life doesn’t work that way either.

For example, at 1:00 am when your 2 month old baby starts screaming and won’t stop after you’ve changed him, fed him, burped, and walked him and he continues crying until 7:30 am you will not look over at your significant other and feel a lot of Valentiney feelings.

 

I have days when I’m not too happy with myself in how I handled a situation or mishandled it or ignored it. *rolls eyes*  Valentine’s Day whether I’m with someone or not is a day to celebrate getting through all of life’s BS without letting it destroy the love I have inside, be it for me or for me and someone else.

So Happy Valentine’s Day and Week!

*tips mug at monitor*