For a long time, Valentine's Day always made feel awkward to the point of not knowing how to describe what I felt.
Not angry. Not bitter. Just… exposed.
It felt like a day that reflected itself as an ugly mirror that I didn't wish to peep into.
I witnessed a lot of individuals professing love with flowers, matched attire, expensive dinners every year and I continued to ask myself the same question I had always asked myself Am I doing this right?
I still remember one time very well.
My relationship seemed to be healthy on the surface. We joked, we went out and we took pictures.
People talked about me and my girlfriend as though we were cute couples and I thought it was so. Or at least I wanted to.
The same night, I was trapped in a terrible traffic and sweating in my seat and wondering how to say good night when I saw her. Not that I didn't miss her, but I was fearful of the night being something dull.
At dinner time, I noticed the little things which I had never contemplated in months. The way we preferred to use our phones rather than Have a conversation.
How silence was heavy and not peaceful.
How we lingered on the surface of the conversations, none of it was deep.
On one occasion I could hear her laugh on her phone and I had this weird sharp pain in the middle of my chest.
It wasnt jealousy.
It was Emptiness.
I remember that I smiled and nodded at night whenever she spoke but then, sitting in my car after the night had passed and the engine was switched off looking at the steering wheel and the thoughts going through my mind was that I have failed in something of which I had no idea.
It was the first time I said to myself "I have somebody with me, and yet I am so lonely".
Alas it came to an end, and from then on the day of valentine was not so noisy anymore.
No plans. No expectations. Just me.
At first, it felt like freedom. Then it was as though it were another thing.
some mild loneliness that only reveals itself when nobody is around.
The unshouting type that just sits by you.
I would scroll through my social media at those nights as though I was indifferent.
Watching others out on a date and enjoying the romance and telling myself that I was too engaged in developing.
At other times though, I would open the app and even close it in the middle of the night, and ask myself whether or not there was something wrong with me to want to be connected and be frightened at the same time.
Then I met someone new.
It wasn't anything fancy.
I was happy because with this one, I didnt need to polish my personality or speech before speaking.
One night we were seated together in the quiet and I felt this unknown silence.
No pressure to entertain.
No urge to impress.
Just presence.
It was the first time when I was panic-stricken on a Valentine.
Old habits kicked in.
I started thinking about gifts, plans, things all that I thought love required.
But we did not do anything special.
We cooked badly. We laughed at stupid jokes. We talked about kid phobias, grieved desires, monetary anxiety and family traumas the stuff people make a secret when they are struggling to be likable.
I once had a glance at her and she said that I did not go out of my way to be good with her. "You just exist.” She said.
And something struck me somewhere in my bosom.
This was not a play of love as it had always been.
It felt like rest.
At the time of valentine, now I do not feel a bare butt.
I feel grounded.
I have been aware of the fact that love does not involve asserting something. It is not being forgotten when you are tired, confused, still struggling in life and not being rejected in it.
Real love doesn’t shout.
It doesn’t rush.
It doesn’t need witnesses.
It feels like safety. Like honesty without fear.
As a being which picks you up even when you are silent, flawed and developing.
And perhaps, that is why suddenly, Valentine makes sense to me.
Not as a day to show love
but it takes us back to how love should have been Even when you are all alone.