I can't remember, it seems like it was a year ago that I blogged about visiting the courthouse on Valentine's Day and how delighted I was at all the fresh newlyweds clogging the hallways, taking photos on the front steps, and generally being gooey-eyed over each other. It might have been an email though, because I can't find the blog. Well, here I am a year later and I found myself once more needing to make deliveries to the court house for work. Only I couldn't do it. I just couldn't face the gooey eyed idiots. I've shuffled through the office with my eyes down kind of holding my breath so I don't even have to smell the roses other women here have gotten. Luckily, something melted on the vaccuum cleaner belt so the smell is not so much an issue. And then to top it off, I got my copy of "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion in the mail today. I flipped it open to the first page, to the first words on the page, "Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it changes." And I started crying.
My lack of enthusiasm about Valentine's Day, or rather spending lots of money that we didn't have on Valentine's Day, was an argument used in supporting the need for my divorce. I wish I could tell him today that if he thought I wasn't enthusiastic before, I'm very close to being dead around the heart regarding this holiday now. Life hurts too much. My friend Shari reminds us that St. Valentine is the patron saint of epileptics. I think that's a better thing to reflect upon today, don't you? Love is a really sucky thing to focus on for an entire, entirely too public day. Love is personal and painful and raw. It isn't really a Hallmark emotion, is it really?
I read an article today by a woman who escaped to a Dominican Republic beach resort with her two chilren on the first Valentine's Day after her husband was killed in the twin towers. It was an outstanding piece, very uplifting, all about how we can find new meaning despite ourselves. Despite the ringing endorsement for embracing the new love, the new traditions, I have to admit that in my heart of heart what I really got out of it was..."that's a hell of an idea." Her idea was perfect, an escape for those of who are wounded by this painful holiday, though her execution, we find out, was not terribly successful. I'm thinking though, that there are establishments who could make a fortune for Valentine's Day Protesters. They have Football Widows sales on Super Bowl Sunday, wouldn't it be a brilliant choice for someone to dish up some forgetfulness for "the rest of us" on this puffy pink nightmare of a day?
I'm just sayin' - there oughta be a place for people like us.
