Valentine’s Day: Love After Loss

For most of my life, I never gave much value or importance to Valentine’s Day, despite being a big ole softy for love. It certainly provided some beautiful feelings and memories along the way, found in special kept cards, but there was always apart of me that felt the commercialism of it all. And then came the first Valentine’s Day after my partner’s death. Arriving almost six months since he had vanished from my life. Winter taking an unprecedented toll that year. Days tied together by aching, inescapable loneliness – often only interrupted by the welcomed distractions of social media. I honestly don’t think I ever anticipated how challenging that first Valentine’s Day would be.

Love love love all around. In the aisles of Walgreens. In the crafted windows of neighborhood homes. In the seemingly endless Facebook posts. I’m so keenly aware of it all and it’s completely overwhelming – shining a light on everything I don’t have. And it SUCKS.

I avoid. I try to escape. If you’ve ever quit smoking – take the first 12 hours of day one – and then imagine that each hour feels like 24 hours. With no sleep to break them up. Towards the end of that day, I was almost literally crawling out of my skin.

Who am I? Whose life I am leading? How did I get here? How do I get OUT of here?

And I open my computer and google ‘free gay dating sites’. Yup. It’s 2015, I’m 41 years old and I’ve never even seen a dating site, except in commercials. But what the hell. I come across a site called ‘OK Cupid’. Haha oh irony. Ok great – it’s free and appears to be relatively innocent compared to some others that show up at the top of the search. It’s 10pm on Valentine’s Day, my first alone in 20 years and I’m filling out my first online dating profile. I’m terrified – is it too soon? What will people think? But also – if I don’t do something different, change things up – I’ll drown.

Long story, short – it wasn’t the last dating site I got on – and I never found ‘the one’ through those ventures. It was often messy. I was naive. Again. I did meet a number of really nice, genuine guys though. And one of those guys just happened to introduce me to the guy with whom I’m celebrating my first Valentine’s Day as an officially married man, four years later.

So this Valentine’s Day…

Whether you’re alone, in love or somewhere in between…

Shake things up. Do something different. Surprise someone. Surprise yourself. Take a chance. Doesn’t have to be romantic. But try to open your heart. Share it. Step out of your comfort zone. No new adventures ever start there. It’s your love story. Go write it.