Valentine's Day Postmortem

Valentine's Day always provokes a little reminiscence-- some wisdom-seeking, since true love for me has been more of a temporary phenomenon... or an impossible quest, punctuated by death or tragedy.  And things linger... the scent of it, the absolute certainty of what evaded me-- what I gave away or abandoned. 

There were times, of course, those 'pinch-me' moments, when things seemed ultra-perfect... even during marriage, I was happy.  But I always return to a moment in London in the 1980's... where I'd moved to make my young husband equally happy... hearing him, his terrible voice singing in the shower a Smiths song... Stop Me... the lyric which paralyzed me: 'Nothing's changed...I still love you...only slightly, only slightly less than I used to, my love.'  The 'my love' at the end of the line is the chilling blow.  I can remember I was making the bed, that wonderful bed in the Acton Lane flat, where I  had felt consummated, celebrated, wifely.  But suddenly I began to doubt. Whether the song like a curse oozed onto the windscreen of my vision, or like theatre foretold an impending disaster, it was the moment I began to squirm.  

Maybe I looked for cracks in our perfect wedding portrait and our little romantic life, but there they were... not just the seeds of some discontent, but the evidence.  'Only slightly' would perhaps have been forgivable. In the end there was full-on infidelity.  Of course, as many of these rogue lovers and husbands insist, it is you that created some insecurity-- you, your touring and your band-intimacies and gracious audiences.  It set him off to find his own solace-- with the help of alcohol, and friendly divorcees at his office who were more than happy to accommodate his insecurity, his alleged loneliness.  

No one in this world ever wants to accept 'less'.  Whether it's a smaller tip, a briefer kiss, five times a week instead of seven, it is no longer enough.  We are such fragile creatures-- we speculate, we personalize, we suspect. It is evidence we have been demoted.  To be demoted in love is unacceptable.  It is painful and one step away from rejection.

The inverse of love is not hatred, but the absence of love. Indifference.  Elie Wiesel wrote of this-- the pain of neglect, the sense of abandonment; in this culture, to be 'unseen'.  It damages children, pets... deflates egos and hurts people.  

Our culture is fickle and harsh.  Celebrity can be a flash in the pan. It's not easy to be the best selling artist or most sought-after actor... it's a height from which you can only fall... and even these perfect couples-- well, they sometimes break apart.. or one stops loving the other, or finds someone else... it's difficult to go from #1 to #2.  

I've watched my son over the years go in and out of relationships-- doubt himself when it seems things are optimal... cause things to derail, then regret and try to put them back together.  The Prodigal husband-- it's a thing.  A couple I know divorced, remarried and then divorced again.  

Occasionally I dream about my husband, the one who swore it was just a song... who'd also sworn no one would ever love me the way he did, no one had the capacity of love that he had. Similarly I dream about a dog I had years ago-- that I come home and I've neglected him-- he's unfed, emaciated... My psychiatrist friends say dogs are dream-substitutes for our own selves.  But when I dream of my husband, he's not a dog or a substitute-- he's at a bar talking to someone... or he's walking away-- it's the devastating feeling that whatever peak of emotion you both managed to scale, you are on the way down-- it is 'less'--- he is leaving you... and there is nothing quite as difficult.  I've had affairs where you sabotage-- you anticipate and you ruin things, you 'fold' before the game is played out.  It's a kind of cowardice.   I know many single men who claim to love their bachelor status.  It's hard to trust people.  Nothing makes us more vulnerable than love.  We can lose money, lose our home, our job-- but finding your partner with someone else is the deepest wound.  It is a kind of death.  

In New York City where supposedly single people outnumber couples, Valentine's Day is still a looming silliness with which we tend to measure ourselves-- our relationship health, our single-ness, the admission of envy of some of my friends who have no romantic partner and feel diminished, or the ones that discredit and malign the day.  Coming as it does just days after my birthday, it was always sort of a denouement day for me.  I've been to weddings and received heart-shaped guitar picks engraved with the names of couples who went on to despise one another.  

My ex-husband championed the band My Bloody Valentine which debuted about the same time as The Smiths.  Ironically, they broke up, got back together, etc.  Personally, I'm just relieved it's over.  I never really liked the color red...  and while I cut out paper hearts for my friends and co-workers, I'm relieved to have not slightly less but no expectations.  I love those whom I love.  Some of them are still alive.  Things seem to work out.   Or not.