black and yellow

Most single women I talk to struggle with particular holidays. One friend finds Christmas depressing, another struggles with the perpetual loneliness that comes with Turkey day in Novemeber.

New Year's and Valentine's are the hardest for me--I think because they are events centered not on family or faith but on a significant other. The ball drops, the calender flips, and eyes seek the Other. This week I went to five different shops before I could find a card suitable for my friend that didn't declare "I can't wait to get in your trousers."

And so today is Valentine's Day again. I have written a couple of times in the past about being single on this holiday.

I've argued for choosing a better path and recorded small words that float like the tips of icebergs. And every year I meditate on love--what it is and what it should look like as I live my life as a single woman.

Last year at Valentine's, I had hope that this year would see me in a different situation, with "in a relationship" listed on my Facebook profile. Unlike the years before, when Hope usually meant a faceless form to appear sometime in the far future, this Hope had a name. And for various reasons, some mundane and some heart-breakingly sad, that name and face didn't turn out to be the hope I had looked for, but instead it has dissapeared into the mist that now makes up my past days. 

So I have found this year's mid-Febuary marker harder, sorer, like a bruise that a child keeps probing---something is missing. 

But, just like a bruise, I have found the sore spot is healing, instead of angry black and blues, it is starting to yellow. But certain things still poke at it, holding up my singleness like a sign--a friend's new-found love, another's long discussion about wedding cakes and receptions. And I am reminded of the soreness of being single on yet another Valentine's Day.

So instead of focusing on my bruise, yesterday I focused on making others' bruises lighter. I cooked and laughed. Then, after a walk by a rough and misty sea with people I love, I was reminded that there is One who heals and is my source of life.

So, reader, I hope that in spite of of your marital status (or lack thereof), whether you are wandering through the desert or by the sea, you will remember, that cards and candies do not measure your worth. May you find the One who will always be your Hope.

Comments

[jen oliver]

It always seems easier said than done to be perfectly sensitive--to neither "probe" at the wounds of one who has not been blessed in one particular way or another in our own exuberance; nor, on the other hand, in our disappointment to make those who have therein been blessed feel somehow guilty about it. My pastor in Indiana (Jeremy's dad) always tried to remind us that times where our personal disappointment was magnified by another's joy, we should be especially intentional about living out Romans 12:15 and seize the opportunity to rejoice with/for our brothers and sisters. Of course, there is an equal admonition to the other side to weep with those who are suffering...

Of course, we could just blame Hallmark! ;o)

YOU ARE LOVED!!!

[Katherine]

You are very right Jen. Most of the time I don't feel poked, but because this year has been a bit harder, I decided to do the best (and hardest) thing--focus on helping others who were in the same situation. So, this year I had my third annual Valentine's party because I knew it would cheer up the single friends who came, and it would bless me as well. God was faithful and it did! :)

Thank you my dear, I wish I could visit you again. Maybe a road trip will be in order to celebrate when I graduate! :)

[David Brown]

Interesting that you've found peace in moving beyond yourself. I say interesting because this "holiday" is supposedly about just that: moving beyond yourself to show how much you love someone. Yet, we've managed to make it about ourselves, somehow, to make it about what we get in return for showing that affection, be it "getting into one's trousers" or whatever...as Jen says, we can blame that on Halmark. There's a spiritual epiphany in what you've done that is far transcendent to "Happy Valentine's Day" platitudes.