Letter to Valentine's day

Dear Valentine's day

They say that you are not really a romantic holiday. That you are just a day. A day when actually christians were martyred. That you are just a product of a poets pen, and that are now just exploited by marketers. I agree with some of it...but ....i think there is more to you than meets the eye.

I am told that it is good to be just HONEST. The truth is that you really bother me now. i think you bother a lot of people. Everytime, before you show up, i start feeling this weird feeling...this feeling of doom. How can you just spread so instantly in february, flooding my inbox, showing up in all corners. Valentine's day, you really bother me.

Don't get me wrong. It's not that i don't like love. i love love - i think it's the best thing that happens on the planet. After tasting just a bit of it, i cant stop thinking about it. It is the drug my soul is addicted to. Just ideas about love...they throw me on a loop. It's the biggest dream inside me. But in the travels of life, i think i bought a lie somewhere along the way. i bought the lie that says i'm not alive if i'm not in love. i bought the lie that says if i love someone but then they stop loving me or they start loving someone else, then i must have no value or power or worth. i bought the lie that says if i'm not in love, then i'm as good as dead. That there is no worth in me. That the hole in my soul will just explode with my guts spewing out. I bought the lie that unless i give and get the card and candy and flowers, i am a nobody. Loveless. Worthless.

And if you believe that lie long enough, it makes a giant hole. It makes a hole so big that no one person could ever begin to fill it. Not even a princess. Believe me, i've tried. To fill it with a person, to fill it with beauty, to fill it with all the things you sell. Chocolate. Flowers. Huge Stuffed Bears. They dont work. They are all fake. Nothing can fill this hole.

Eddie Vedder says that this hole in his soul makes him want to sing. The pain makes him yearn for more than he has. He has everything though. He has the girl and kids and life and money. I trust Eddie. He seems real. I always thought that the girl would help me heal. Appearantly not so.

i've been thinking lately that maybe i've confused a girl for God, a different one every year or two. And that is a lot of pressure to put on someone, to make them God. That is a ton of power to hand someone. Especially when they're just a person. A person with questions and flaws and pain of their own. And it creates a tension between us. How can i worship someone who does not want to be worshipped, who does not deserve to be worshipped. That does not plug this hole, just distracts my attention. I am just an idolator....might as well be worshipping a statue or a gold ram or something.

So maybe there's a war, inside of me and for me and maybe my heart is the opposite of small. Maybe it's the opposite of cheap and empty and alone. Maybe it's sacred and enormous and wild, and seeking something greater than just a girl, or a "perfect" life. Maybe it is seeking life. Maybe it is seeking God's own heart!

To make a long story short, i think i've given you, Valentine's day, way too much power. i let you scare me and i let you name me and i let you tell me what i'm worth. And every passing year when i am single, and alone, and lonely, i let you stab this dagger in my heart. You get worse every year, and i am allowing you to do it!

i don't want to do that anymore.

There are dreams inside of me and those are mine and my guess is that they're there for a reason.I think they were put in there for a real purpose, I believe that they will become more solid to me someday, more real. Till then i am just a tadpole, waiting to become a frog. I think God will make me a frog one day, but i am not going to hurry Him. But for all the days like now where the dreams are asked to be only dreams, i'm gonna keep getting out of bed. i'm gonna keep living my story. i'm gonna believe that there is reason and purpose, and power in my life. i'm gonna believe that i'm alive inside a story bigger than my pain, bigger than everything missing.

It crossed my mind to try to ignore you, to try to go to bed early and wake up when you're gone. To not acknowledge you. But you know what Valentine's day, i am not apathetic towards you. You break my heart, but i dont think it is you. I think it is lonliness, and heart break and injustice in the world which does so. It is the falsehood of believing that if i dont have the one special person, no one loves me. I think it is this empty hole i am always trying to plug. So i wont ignore you. This is my letter to you.....my acknowledgement....and proclamation that you will not win. You may make me sad and dissapointed but you will not take away my hope.

Valentine's Day, i don't hate you. i don't even blame you. Perhaps you did not name yourself. Perhaps you are the product of hundreds of years, hundreds of thousands of broken people and all the holes in their hearts.

My story is going to be a love story one day Valentine's day. Just watch. One which is greater than me. One in which i am not the center. One in which things will be put right. No pain. No holes. No sorrow. Just equanimity and joy.