Growing up in my house was such an amazing thing. As an adult with a daughter from a failed love, I realize how much effort my parents put into each other. How much they chose every day to love each other through everything, through the fighting and the hardships and the children and the history. My mother brought all the love in the world to our house, but this post is going to focus on my father.
My dad set the bar high for Valentines Day. Not because he always bough fancy/expensive/extravagant gifts (although he did that a couple of times) because he usually didn't. It was because he paid attention to the people he loved and made an effort to fill a need for them. Even a frivolous one, like my Junior year of high school, when I had exactly four real friends, and no guy had looked at me twice in weeks (at least not that I knew about) and I was surrounded by people who were definitely about to get stuff. My dad sent me flowers and balloons to school that year. It is the only time in my life that I have received flowers that way, and it was pretty special. I knew they were from my dad even if the card did read " Your Secret Admirer". I wasn't fooled, but I got to pretend I didn't know, I got to show them to my friends and laugh with them and let them tell me who they just knew had sent them. My dad gave me more than flowers that day, he gave me the ability to not feel left out. At a time in my life when I desperately needed it. And that is the only Valentines Day I really have fond memories of.
Since then I have either been single or alone on Valentines Day. The few years I have not been single, he was working, so we had to celebrate some other time, which shouldn't matter. But, it does. And those memories are tainted now, and the failure is too new to let them be anything but bitter. But even when they get to be something good again, they still fell short. Because no person has ever paid enough attention to me to give me the things I truly crave this time of year. And each year the things I want change, but the reason I hate this holiday, is not because it is a "fake" day for people to pretend to be in love, or some other drivel. It is because this day has always completely disappointed me ever since I left my childhood behind. I do not feel loved on this day, I do not feel wanted, no card or dinner or gift has ever filled that void in me.
It's not like I don't love myself, I do. But I am honest enough with myself and in turn you, to acknowledge that on this day, of all days, like every one else, I long to be truly loved by someone else and even when I was in love, I never really felt that completeness.
