A Valentine Day message for the weary amongst us

A Valentine Day message for the weary amongst us
                        

I caught myself at the end of a busy Friday being excited it was the weekend. I’d had a good hair day and for a tick of a second forgot the pandemic had taken normal routines and tossed them out the window. My breath caught a little, and I realized there hasn’t been a true Friday in nearly a year.

But what is true? Friday used to be our day, my husband and mine, when we’d dress up after work and head somewhere to nosh on appetizers and drink a beer. We’d throw our heads back and laugh, really laugh — not the laughter of half-listening over coffee on a busy must-get-to-work morning, but the true laughter of really hearing what someone has to say and fully digesting it. It’s been replaced with at-home movies and pizza, sometimes even cooking (on a Friday for me, that’s a big deal), and eventually, I’ve forgotten the excitement of getting ready to go out. Soft pants and softer couches have been the way.

Life and marriage and pandemic months and Fridays that don’t signal what they used to. This past year our days have beaten differently, and the daily intricacies of life have blurred my partner’s face until I catch myself squinting, trying to see him clearly. He’s right where he’s always been, and when I reach for him, he’s there. It would be easy to be angry, continuing to do the things we’ve always done as if nothing is different. But the care-free feeling no longer exists, and I won’t compromise.

We’ve found other ways of connecting. We love to binge-watch various shows, but we also like to watch the things we love separately. We’ve always had a rule of no TV in the bedroom, but on nights we feel the need to watch different things, on goes the TV he sets up at the end of our bed where he tunes in for hours of funny YouTube videos that make him laugh. I catch up on the news or a horror movie on the living room set, and when it’s time for bed, down comes the TV in the bedroom and off go the lights. Giving each other space for what the other enjoys, especially with more time spent together the past 365 days, is fully a love language.

Sometimes we get up on crisp Saturday or Sunday mornings for a meandering drive, a coffee curling its steam nestled in the holder between us. These are the moments I savor, time spent sitting in silence as the hot biscuit sandwiches laden with bacon are devoured in small bites. I brush the crumbs off my lap and look at him. The blurriness fades, and he comes into focus for me between sips. Maybe we will visit a thrift store, drifting in and out of aisles, where we can control who we come in contact with and how close, perusing LPs and dishes families once ate off, the beautiful miscellanea of life.

I thought about our night out on Valentine’s Day of 2020. We tried out a fancy restaurant nestled in a decadent cellar in a nearby downtown. We sampled dishes we’d never tried before, ordered a bottle of wine with the meal and ended with a rich dessert. I remember it vividly because it was bitterly cold, so cold we wore our heaviest coats. The sky was a brilliant blue as we set out that evening, and we ended it in the wee hours of the morning in a tiny club where we watched a show. It would be one of the last evenings we went out before everything began.

I sometimes miss how it was before, but I don’t long for it. I have the same people in my life who I love with all my heart. We just do things differently now. It’s naïve to believe we can pretend nothing has changed.

Learning to exist and thrive inside events that have changed our world, well, it’s an intentional act — one with meaning. And as Valentine’s Day approaches us this weekend, tip-toeing in and garbed in the softest of red socks, I’ll greet her with thrifted red candlesticks and homemade dipped strawberries laid out on my finest tablecloth. Love can be blurry in a world where everything seems upside down. I plan on lighting a candle to make things brighter, bringing him into focus.

Melissa Kay Herrera is a columnist and author. You can find her published novel on Amazon at www.tinyurl.com/Tonolives, as well as The Gospel Book Store in Berlin. For queries or speaking engagements, email her at junkbabe68@gmail.com.


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