My Darling Valentine,

I know this looks like a public message that could be for anyone. It is. It’s also just for YOU. You know who you are. I am your not-so-secret admirer. I am that one clapping and cheering so loudly for all you do, all you are, that it embarrasses you at times. You turn away, refuse to hear me, and retreat from such cheesy displays. You feel more comfortable doubting yourself and sleuthing your way through the indifference of others who could not love you like I do. “Why don’t I fit in?” you wonder. “What is wrong with me?” “Why am I never the one chosen?” You languish in the pendulum swing between wondering why no one else loves you and thinking I, who loves you so much, am a simpleton, an idiot, an Untrustworthy Exuberant. As fervently as you sometimes believe no one loves you, you cannot believe someone does. The truth is, you just want the Winners, the Cool Kids, and the Rich & Desirable to find you enchanting and adorable. Not me. It’s ok.

I get it. I’m used to it by now. I’ve been secretly in love with you for a long, long time. I know you.

I know things have been a little rough on you lately. February is tough, even without a global pandemic in full swing. You find yourself just “going through the motions” in these “cat evenings” of Winter. These are the feline cousin of the “dog days” of Summer, marked by an utter lack of ambition and the urge to curl oneself into an aloof and furry ball and hiss or scratch those who come too close. You reject the wholesome food in your bowl and instead, over indulge on catnip, houseplants, and other toxic items when others aren’t looking. It is a time of fuggy ideas as clogged as litter boxes, general ennui, and retching up your own fur that you should not have swallowed in the first place. I’ve been paying attention and I sense how you are not doing all that much and yet it is making you drained, fatigued, with a to-do list a mile long that incites nothing more than the urge to take a dump in someone else’s shoes. Nothing on that list makes you feel inspired any more. Just Burdened. You just want to lie on the rug. Being warm and fed bores you. Thinking of those who aren’t, grieves you. You long to be set free on the Alaskan tundra and to run until you are sleek and fleet, saying a shrill farewell to middle-class domesticity and morality once and for all. And yet you lie there, Still… Simultaneously outgrowing your yoga pants and shrinking your curiosity until it is left to rattle like a raisin in the hollow of your skull.

And here I come, shouting my love, clapping my hands, urging you to jump up and trim your whiskers. I have the nerve to wish you a Happy Valentine’s Day and tell you that you are Loved. Yes, YOU—lazy, sloppy, ill-tempered and sad you, YOU are the one I love. Just as you are.

Other times, I see you striving, straining, laboring so hard to bring Dreams into being. You wake up early, stay up late. I see you tilling gardens, planting seeds, hauling manure, threshing wheat and then (unlike Henny Penny) giving all your good bread to the hungry. I see you loving your neighbors, not as yourself but as Exalted Beings. You have a servant’s heart. There is not much you won’t do for anyone, including total strangers. You go beyond generous, beyond kind. Your amplifier is set at 11. Your pedal never leaves the metal. (Until you crash.) When told you are a too much of perfectionist, your first response is “Really? How can I fix that?” When others tell you to chill, you say “Tell me, how does one excel at giving up? What does Excellent Surrender look like? Is there a Dean’s List for that?”

And here I come, whispering my love, smoothing your brow, and urging you to sit and have a bowl of soup, a bath, and a change of undies. I have the nerve to wish you a Happy Valentine’s Day and tell you that you are Loved. Yes, YOU—ambitious, amped-up, work-aholic, over-busy, perfectionistic you, YOU are the one I love. Just as you are.

I love all the parts of you, from the sinner to the saint. I love the “you” that thought it was smart to store an incontinent dog in a car for half an hour so you could have a Zoom conference in peace and look professional without a lot of unnecessary barking in the background. (I love that you attempted to look professional.) I love the “you” that put a homemade sweater on the dog and gave it a warm bed with a hot water bottle and some treats because it was ten degrees out and you didn’t want him to get cold. I love the “you” that had to chip slushy, semi-frozen diarrhea off the ALL the seats and launder the homemade sweater afterward. I love the fact that you did not yell (very much) as you cleaned, and cleaned, and cleaned. (It was EVERYWHERE.) I love the fact that you deposited all that shite right next to the car as you were sweeping and scrubbing. And I especially love the fact that you came right out the next day, stepped in it without looking, and brought it all back into the car on your own feet. God, how I LOVE you!! You are so dear and precious to me. There is no other quite like you in this whole magical universe.

I love that you try so hard and always come up a little flawed. I love how you call yourself a music teacher and then cannot find the pitch of the song that you are about to do. I love that you were in the middle of recording a song online, with an audience listening, and a customer called and left a lengthy voice memo on the answering machine asking you to put plastic all over his suit because he is allergic to another customer’s cat hair—and you forgot to delete that part before you sent the song out afterwards. I love it that you cannot remember the name of the child you just sang hello to. I love it that you make the chickens a big clean-the-fridge “salad” once a week and eat cheerios for dinner so you can save the broccoli for them. (Or so you say…)

We’ve had a stormy courtship, you and I. I’ve had to learn an awful lot about you in order to fall so madly in love with you. Like the sound of a human voice, the grain on an interesting piece of wood, the mistake in a quilt or a piece of weaving, or the scribble of a child--It is the flaws that make you unique and interesting to me. They are how I know it’s you. You tried for so many years to be “Perfect”—trying everything to brighten your mind as well as your teeth. Not satisfied with fixing yourself, you tried “fix” everybody around you too. You helped them stop drinking coffee, avoid dairy, gluten, and anything that involved nicotine, alcohol, or Joy. You made the children around you stand up taller, be better at sports, better at music, and know their math facts. Your nagging was as tireless as it was tiresome. (Remember when you went on a crusade to make young and old alike memorize The Gettysburg Address?) You administered cheery, bright little dollops of shame, like cherries, on top of every “perfect” gift you ever gave.

It took a while—nearly half a life—before you realized that you were the common denominator in every relationship failure you had. They didn’t need to change; you did. The person you needed to “fix” was yourself. You gave up scolding children and the vexing hobby of trying to cajole men into being better companions for women and decided to clean up your own side of the street. You joined support groups, went on religious retreats, read bales of dead trees printed with self-help affirmations, watched videos, consulted priests and gurus… At the end of it all, you realized you had had just about the same amount of luck in changing a person as before (i.e. NONE). One cannot turn a Gentian into a Rose. It turns out that you are WAY better at fixing broken zippers than people.

You sat down then, ate a whole carton of ice-cream, drank a pint of booze, ordered six new pairs of shoes online and thought “Well, this is just crap. Broken me… broken them… broken world… What a mess. Now what?”

And this is the moment that makes my heart beat faster every time I think of it. It still takes my breath away. This is the moment we fell in love. After all the tears and that fantastic pity party you hosted, you looked into my eyes and changed the only thing about your entire body you had any power to change: your lips. You pulled them upward into a smile. I saw the true beauty of You. I knew we’d be together forever then.

Let me tell you, my Darling, Perfect ain’t where it’s at. Not by a long shot. Clothing can be fixed but people can’t. People are just to be loved. Just as they are. YOU--Your scars, your flaws, your resilience, these are what make me love you more than anything. To me, you are “Flaw-some!” Best of all, I love that once in a great while, you summon the Grace to join me in loving you. Just as You are. Won’t you do that, Today? Please? Join me in loving you—Just as you are.

With deepest Joy,

Your Valentine