YES, I DO know that Tuesday is Valentine’s Day.
Apparently a lot of you do, too, because quite a few of you have been emailing me about it.
I’m not sure what triggered this particular eruption (maybe it’s just a welcome distraction from everything else that’s going on), but I’ve noticed that many of us seem to be feeling particularly … cynical about Valentine’s Day this year.
I don’t know what the Valentine’s equivalent of “Bah, humbug!” is, but we’re certainly having an attack of it.
I understand as well as you do that we’re surrounded by a perpetual cacophony of what’s wrong, who’s wrong, who’s lying, who’s just nuts and which specific brink we are teetering upon this week, so feel free to wrap yourselves in a sugar-coated mantle of cynicism and wait for it to be Feb. 15.
The emails that have struck me, though, are from a few elders who aren’t cynical; they’re just sad. And they’re sad because they’re lonely.
And the reason that they’re lonely is because they’ve lost their loves, as in “my one, true love.”
Their partners. Their spouses. Their best friends. And all the hoop-tee-doo about Cupid and candy and love is just making it worse. Just making the quiet echo all the more.
I’d like to help. It’s what I do and who I am, but I can’t.
There’s absolutely nothing I can do that will change what they’re going through, so I won’t risk demeaning it with platitudes, but I will share what I know, as a way of saying, “I understand,” which is all that anyone can say.
Here’s what I know:
I know that you won’t agree with this and I don’t blame you, but you are some of the luckiest people in the world because you (like I) actually know what “love” is.
I’m sure that we would define it in different ways, maybe use different words or metaphors.
Or maybe not.
Maybe we’d use a lot of the same ones because they’re the only ones we know. It doesn’t matter.
Except it does matter.
It matters because we want to find the perfect words — the words that will accurately communicate how unbelievable this whole “love” thing is.
The words that will honor the most important thing in our lives.
The magic words that will eclipse “I love you,” which has become so … drab. So … common. So … not enough.
There are people who live their entire lives and never experience this “love” thing so … yeah, you are some of the luckiest people in the world.
But you’re not feeling very “lucky,” are you?
If you’d had any idea that there could be this much pain and this much aloneness and this much … quiet, you’d have probably skipped it and kept yourself “safe,” right?
No, you wouldn’t — because you couldn’t imagine your life without it. And you wouldn’t trade all of that just to avoid this.
It’s often the word “love” — the word that, with time (and no small dose of stubbornness), gets bigger and bigger, until it’s big enough to hold other words, such as trust, faith, loyalty. Words such as familiarity, company. Maybe even words such as habit, silliness and maddening little ways.
And … comfort. A soothing, perhaps, that takes the edge off the world and allows us to do another day. A reason.
A reason. A reason to endure all the BS and pettiness and unnecessary hurtfulness of a frightened world. A reason to keep on keepin’ on … us. Just plain old, down-home, everyday us.
It’s a big word, love. As it gets older and wiser, and seems to hold more and more, it seems to become less clear — those little Hollywood and Hallmark clichés just don’t fit anymore — because it’s become something else.
The “something else” that we made — us.
You wouldn’t trade places, and you know it. You knew damn good and well that you were taking a huge risk, all along.
That you were risking exactly this, by succumbing to love. (Or whatever you’d come to call it by then). You knew you were rolling the dice.
And you won.
But, right now, it doesn’t feel like winning. It feels like …
I know. I’m sorry — I’d make it better for you if I could. I’d rewind that tape and play it again and again and again, so you’d never have to be alone. But that’s silly.
And you know it.
Don’t be afraid to feel what you’re feeling, and don’t let some well-meaning halfwit tell you what to do about it or how it’s going to go. You know how it’s going to go, pretty much.
It was worth it and you’d do it again. Even knowing what you know now.
Valentine’s Day is just a day, and it will pass, but understand that you really are one of the luckiest people in the world: Somebody somewhere likes you.
Because somebody somewhere loved you.
________
Mark Harvey is director of Clallam/Jefferson Senior Information &Assistance, which operates through the Olympic Area Agency on Aging. He is also a member of the Community Advocates for Rural Elders partnership. He can be reached at 360-452-3221 (Port Angeles-Sequim), 360-385-2552 (Jefferson County) or 360-374-9496 (West End), or by emailing harvemb@dshs.wa.gov.
