On this, the Valentine's Day (mandated by the acts of some medieval English martyr and a couple of ad wizards over at Hallmark worldwide headquarters) of 2007, I have some news: I have absolutely no pronouncements, substantive or self-serving, bitter or beseeching, topical or tertiary, to make about Valentine's day this year.
Searching within myself, I have no power to be wry. I have no desire to be forlorn. Clever sailed a long time ago. Bitter really requires too much effort. And, inspired is something I gave up on in the second grade (well, maybe it was the second year of law school, but one obviously sounds more dramatic than the other.)
So here I am on Valentine's Day absolutely neutral. If you squint at the definition a little (or a lot), it looks as though I have in fact achieved nirvana, an aspirational state of being which is "characterized by the extinction of desire and suffering and individual consciousness." I have no desire, I am not suffering, ergo I have reached a higher plane of existence?
Did I ever mention that I hate flying?
And so the truth reveals itself. For all of the protestations I have made on the occasion of Valentine's Day past (and pretty much every other day of the year), I do not really care to be above the desire and its attendant suffering. I do not need perspective. I want to be one of Love's drunken revelers, or at least to want to want to be one of Love's drunken revelers. But right now, there isn't room for love. No interest in sowing seeds to which I can give no nourishment. Like my freshman year ficas, doomed to become moribund and to remain that way, even if lugged around for the following three years, despite fervant denials, never to be verdant again. There are so many problems with me right now. I need to at least get a handle on what they are.
But I miss at least feeling eligible for love. Love does not choose me. I am not lamenting that. It is just a fact. A fact which is true, in large part, because I have been hiding from Love for a long time. Love is social, but it is not rude and it is generally law abiding, so to expect it to break down my front door, to pry the Chunky Monkey from my hands, and to forcibly remove me from my couch seems a little ridiculous.
I have indulged my inner narcissist for quite sometime now, and it is something which I aim to change. But for this moment, and the next little while, I am going to continue to let it run rampant. I need to let its single-minded focus of self preservation and effective/enjoyable survival carry me to safe and stable ground upon which I can take a deep breath, get a good lay of the land and proceed accordingly.
Right now it isn't Love that is lost. It is me.
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1 comment:
You'll find yourself one of these days. Nothing wrong with taking a break from worrying about the whole love thing anyway. The stress of worrying about being alone or whether you'll ever find love again just requires too much effort sometimes. I feel that way right now myself.
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