It wasn’t for him; it was for me

I remember a few years back, celebrating my first Valentines alone, in over 22 years. While I had always had my group of close girlfriends around during this red, white and pink, commercialized holiday, with dinner parties, and costume, food and drink, there was something about the extra love in the air that always had my butterflies fluttering and my pheromones on high alert.

That year of romantic solitude included a few choice book titles of romantic love letter collections, a movie or two that ended up in running mascara and a stuffy nose, and steak and lobster dinner in front of the tv for one. It was alright.

That was five years ago.

Each Valentines since I have been blessed with the love of my kids and was content in knowing I had just enough love around me.

This year, I wrote my first Valentines in a half a decade. It was to a very near and dear internet friend (that sounds incredibly creepy). He knows who he is.

Our dismembered and taped up friendship of the last decade has recently been crazy glued back together. The last year in particular we have shared a lot more about our lives as if we were sitting on a bench, sipping Americanos in the late August heat. It has become comfortable enough that I felt a Valentine day note was both appropriately warranted and simple enough in the message that my gratitude was expressed adequately:

I love you today, as if there are no tomorrows❤️

written for you

I sent it to him. He said thank you. And the 14th of February ended and the next day came as expected.

What would come next was the piece that was unexpected.

The next morning, I got out my 40 year old brown coffee cone filter that I grew up watching my parents use until my early 20s. I placed it over my massive coffee mug, boiled my water, adding my freshly ground coffee beans, a little smidge of dried orange peel (another thing I learned from them) and as I slowly added the water to my coffee, l looked over to the coil-bound book that held my hand written Valentines.

Barely awake, and fighting off yet another February migraine, I read my cursive words once, twice and then a third time. I turned my attention to the intoxicating smell of my Starbucks Dark Roast brew and then back to the writing on the lined paper.

I paused.

I lifted the filter from my cup, decanted a teaspoon of maple syrup in my mug (as I was out of honey), a little evaporated milk and cupped my morning elixir in my two hands; this could have been right out of a rom com movie before the love-sick female lead realizes it was always him whom she loved, standing in her kitchen thinking about what he said last night over the phone…

But, that not what happened to me.

I once told someone who had lost over 200lbs, “I would have loved you if I had met you before you became the version of you I know today”; he replied, without hesitation, “I didn’t even love myself then. I wouldn’t have been capable of loving you back.”

I hadn’t thought of that exchange in over seven years. And in that moment I looked down at my barely recognizable cursive (because, let’s face it, who writes these days with a pen and paper?), an overwhelming presence was with me. I don’t know how else to explain it as it wasn’t a thought, or a feeling, or revelation. It was if someone was standing right beside me. All I could say aloud was…

It wasn’t for him; it was for me.

I began to sob uncontrollably.

Now, my logical self was quick to dismiss what I was experiencing. I counted my cycle in my head to see if this reaction was hormonal and I could expect a similar reaction as I watched Rio later that night with my 10 year old. But no, math didn’t work. Was I lonely or alone? Did the little heart at the end of the statement put my mind and soul in a downturn spiral as I wished I had been waking up next to someone that morning?

It wasn’t for him; it was for me (written for you).

I was the YOU.

That note to my friend, an object left from the night before, met me in the morning. With clear eyes. The day after Valentine Day.

Adina, I will love you today, as if there are no tomorrows.

I hadn’t done that in all of my life.

I had never given myself gratitude or thanked my body or heart or mind for all it has endeared or the resilience I have shown over the last six years of my life where I have faced some incredibly tough stuff.

I have never loved myself. And in this moment, some strange twisted way, all the actions up to that point, in an instant, those words became mine.

And I think that’s a pretty great step to start with. Don’t you?

Axxo