Valentine's Day

It's been 20 years since I shared this day with a lover. Somehow my most passionate, romantic lovers have always been involved with me at different times of the year, and they have never lasted. My first lover was in Toronto in 1980, and I was out here. I sent him a stained glass sun-catcher I had made of two hearts entwined. He shook it out of the packaging onto the floor which caused one heart to break. At that time I was still too unconscious to listen to the little messages life sends me.

Like Christmas, it is about myth-making, and the myths that it perpetuates invalidate my life, isolating as me an outsider. The commercial, sentimental hype is slightly less repugnant than Christmas because it doesn't last as long. It is flagrantly showy and self-centered and reminds me of the unconscious, unquestioned nature of heterosexual coupledom, that presumes that their possessive happiness and lifestyle is the golden vision that all others aspire to.

That sounds cold and bitter, but I am romantic by nature. In fact, most of my lovers have complained that I loved them too much, which in the end only meant that they didn't. But when I have been in love I am that way consistently. I didn't need an artificial reminder to celebrate my love one day of the year. I am also quite private about my affairs, respecting the fact that others may not be want to listen to me prattling on like a love-sick teenager.

The day would have passed unnoticed, as most years, but when I checked my itinerary for today I remembered that Rich & Luis have invited me and other friends over to their place tonight to watch a video of their commitment ceremony from a year and a half ago. It's like being invited over to watch someone's video of the happy time they spent with their family at Christmas when the hosts know your Christmas was barren. That sort of thing just makes me hyper-aware of what I lack in my life, but at the same time I want to play the dutiful friend and not refuse their invitation. There is no reason to hurt them. I'll just play along while they rub my nose in it.