I am pretty sure I have said it before and I will say it again. Valentines Day is the worst holiday for me. Even when Ed was still alive I struggled with that day. I had some good days sure, but romance? In my 46 years of life romance on Valentines Day has never really happened. Have I had romantic moments in my life. Yes I have, but those moments are not what I thought they would or maybe even should be.
I have this amazing friend that has taught me a lot in the romance area. Was the teaching intentional? I don’t think so. Yet what it did was open my eyes to the standard of what I want a man to treat me like. Just friends is such a hard thing when a man says things to you that you never knew you wanted to hear. I’m not talking about “you are beautiful” or “you are so amazing.” No a simple “I just want to be your joy. I want to be the person that makes you smile and laugh.” It is driving over to sit out in the cold by a fire just to watch silly things on a phone because I had to be at a funeral that day and it was hard. And then he brings a heated jacket for me to wear, along with a Crown and Coke for us to share. No in my mind nothing has ever been more romantic than sitting under blankets under a star filled sky and the full moon over us. Laughing at the silly videos that he had found to share with me. As much as I didn’t want to, I fell for that man. And while he too felt something and saw the small things I did that he too saw as romantic. The truth is he really does love someone else, and as much as I wished he would love me as he loves her, he just can’t. His heart won’t let him.
Yet the nights that he and I have hung out together and fought feelings that are or are not there, have become the standard of if you can’t treat me like this then I don’t have time for you. Romance is so much more than flowers and big promises. It is seeing the person that you are with. It is spending the hours really getting to know them and seeing them for who they truly are and then accepting them. There is nothing more romantic than loving someone right where they are and accepting that even though you know it is not what they want, you would give your heart to them in half a second because you see how they protect the heart of others.
My friend and I still talk every day. We don’t really hang out anymore, which is a stab to my heart, but I understand it. I took the shot. I told him about the feelings that I was starting to have, and he didn’t. But we are still friends that is what I have taken away from that. Does it hurt, yes, did I constantly internalize the whole question of maybe I’m not good enough for him. Of course I did, after all I am human and a woman. And as a good friend does, he stops me in my tracks. It isn’t that at all, it is simply the fact that he is in love with someone else. That’s it, but he did teach me how I want to be loved. Yes, he showed me how someone should love me.
So today, the dreaded Valentine’s Day, while it is hard and lonely and there are times when I feel like I will never have another love in life. There is tomorrow. And tomorrow is an unknown and it could be the first day of the relationship that I desire and dream to have. Tomorrow could be the day that I meet the love that I long for. I will still sit out by the fire and I will still remember those simple romantic moments. Because they are now the standard to which all will be held to. And I am and will always have been a hopeful romantic.
The Journey of a Lioness 