Confessions of a Valentine Scrooge
Three years ago, in honor of Valentine’s Day, I recorded a video of myself singing I Will Survive. In the video, I’m wearing a gold lamé jumpsuit, long dark wig, and copious amounts of 70’s-inspired makeup, all of which I acquired for the purpose of the recording. I posted it on various social media with the following caption:
Aaaaah, Valentine’s Day. This sugary day on which singles feel alienated and coupled folks gaze at their significant others and secretly find them wanting. A day so laden with gooey expectation that the chance of getting through it without experiencing burning flashes of envy or disappointment is .3 percent (margin of error plus or minus 2)—whether or not you happen to be in menopause. This day on which everyone else seems to be getting fresher flowers, more thoughtful handmade cards, tastier food, and more passionate sex than you will ever have. This day on which, while arguing fiercely under your breath with your significant other at a restaurant, you’re acutely aware of other couples holding hands across the table and gazing soulfully into each other’s eyes. I, for one, have had some of the worst dates of my life on Valentine’s Day. I remember one such occasion, more than a quarter-century ago, in which I stomped out of an Italian restaurant, nearly knocking over the candle and setting fire to the checkered tablecloth, and started trudging home in the rain before my then-boyfriend and I had even had a chance to order, the stares of waitstaff and patrons burning holes in my indignant back as I made my dramatic exit. It is in honor of all this and more that I give you this Valentine’s offering, with mad respect to Gloria Gaynor for her timeless anthem, which has helped more of us get through breakups and heartaches of every stripe than any survey can possibly calculate. Because Yes, Yes, and again Yes! If we survived four years of Donald The Rump, we can definitely survive this day of white-tinged chocolate and brown-edged rose petals. So sing it loud and clear with me, friends—get up and dance, too, if the spirit moves you. Whoever you are, whether your couplehood or singledom strikes you today as blissful, miserable, or somewhere in the vast realm of the in-between: YOU. WILL. SURVIVE!
This was February 2021, high pandemic times, when we were all confined to our homes. I had more time then, which allowed me to make 50+ takes of this video before settling for good enough. (And yes, I do hear that wobbly “hey, hey….” You don’t have to rub it in.)
At the time, I’d been separated from my husband for about a year and a half, and I was wildly in love with an old friend, conducting a passionate long-distance affair via phone, Zoom, text, Facebook Messenger, and all the other means of remote communication available to us in this bewildering century. The romance eventually fizzled, but it lofted me through the pandemic months with a downright shameful amount of joy. It also saved me, for a time, from fully contending with my grief about my marriage.
Last week, when V-Day reared its spangled head once again, I found myself in full-on Scrooge mode, eager to snark and slash my way through the thorny rosebushes of Hallmark’s favorite holiday. I took some haughty selfies with glasses pushed down on my nose, grafted one onto the body of Scrooge McDuck, ran it through a cartoon filter, and scrawled “Valentine’s Day?! Bah! Humbug!” onto the background. I sent this around to a few friends, who sent back cry-laughing emojis, tilted at various angles.
“I see you in there,” one friend texted, asserting that my loving heart was still visible beneath my Scroogeian aspect.
As I sit here, reflecting on my friend’s comment, I’m alarmed to feel a cloud of tears taking shape within my chest. It’s not close to the surface, not yet, but I feel it moving up. It’s maybe an inch behind my eyes now, where it hardens into a tight little knot, verging on a headache. Fuck you tears, I whisper, holding them back. Fuck you, youthful fantasies. Fuck you, Hollywood-fueled dreams. Valentine’s Day is the original fake news.
Do I sound bitter? I suppose I am, a bit. And I suppose my bitterness is in direct proportion to the degree to which my youthful self bought into the dream. Because despite the fact that my parents split when I was seven, I did buy into it. Not the fairytale version, of course. I knew it wasn’t as simple as meet prince, ride into sunset, dwell in eternal bliss. From an early age—before I’d even had a romantic relationship of my own—I claimed to understand that long-term love had its ups and downs and required work. Yet in spite of this savvy posture, I believed that at some point in my twenties or thirties I’d fall wildly in love with someone I’d then marry—someone with whom, over time, that extravagant early love would settle into a deep and abiding friendship-based affection that, coupled with ongoing physical attraction, would withstand whatever challenges life threw at us. In short, I believed in the concept of monogamous life partnership, even though it had taken both of my parents several marriages to find it.
Perhaps the key element here is that my parents did find it, eventually. My mom spent 35 years with her third husband, Erich—whom she’d left my father for—until Erich’s death in 2009. To this day, she describes their time together as “heaven.” And ten years after my mom left, my dad found lasting love with his fourth wife, Betty, with whom he spent the rest of his life. I have no idea about my mom’s sex life—she’s not the type to discuss it—but though my dad and Betty met fairly late in life, they made no secret of the fact that things stayed spicy right up to the end. They were downright proud of that.
My mom and my stepfather Erich.
My dad and my stepmother Betty.
Given my parents’ track records, I had reason to be both cynical and hopeful, depending on how you turn the prism.
So yes, I believed in all that. And now I fucking don’t. Or at least, I think I don’t. Maybe I still do, sometimes. Or maybe I do and don’t at the same time.
Does my attitude have something to do with the demise of my marriage, that devastating unraveling of something I held sacred? Why yes, I suppose it does. I won’t go into details on that, because my wasband and I are now dear friends (and technically still married), but it’s safe to say I did not walk out of matrimony’s flaming edifice unscathed
Last week, on Valentine’s Day evening, I spoke on the phone with my friend H. He’d been hanging around in downtown Ann Arbor that night. He said he’d never seen so many people out on dates.
“I bet most of them were bad dates,” my Scroogey self opined.
He laughed, “Some people were definitely not having a good time.”
I soon realized, though, that he’d responded this way to accommodate my cynicism, but he didn’t really share my perspective. He’d enjoyed seeing couples of all ages out and about, feeling that heady buzz in the air.
“I mean, it’s love, right?” he said. “Love is a good thing.”
“So some of them were having fun?” I asked.
“Oh yeah,” he said. “A lot of them were.”
This got me thinking about what Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield calls the “small sense of self”—the part that’s tethered to our human egos—versus the “larger sense of self,” the part that sees the vastness and interconnectedness of all things. When I’m in my Scrooge persona, I’m operating from my smallest sense of self. That persona, born of my wounds, is protective rather than expansive. That’s not necessarily a bad thing—that wry, humorous character protects my tender parts, giving them time and space to heal. But it’s important not to mistake her limited story for the whole story.
To be clear, my inner Scrooge is not down on love. She’s down on romance. There’s a difference. Love is everywhere and infinite. Love is what I have for my children, my dogs, my friends, my wasband, even the trees outside my window, stripped down to their bark in the winter sun. In those moments when I’m able to access my largest sense of self, that love extends outward to all beings, sentient and non-sentient, every quark of this earth and beyond
Romance is something else. What even is romantic love? If you strip it of its illusions, what’s left?
Obviously this is an area of life about which I’m pretty confused right now. I often feel I’m happier without the distraction. Yet whenever I decide to write it off entirely, something emerges. I recently declared I would not go on any more dates. Before that, I kept meeting people, taking a step towards them, then rapidly backing away. I felt like I was hurting people, something I hate to do. Yet no sooner did I make this declaration, than someone asked me to hang out, and I said yes. I offered lots of caveats (not ready for…not looking for…no time for…), but still I went.
When I was younger, I thought romantic love was everything. It isn’t. In the three years since I donned the gold lamé jumpsuit and insisted on my heart’s survival, I’ve cultivated a life rich in family, friends, creativity, and spiritual investigation. I wonder now whether I have the space or even the desire for romantic love at all. Much of the time, I’m too busy to think of it.
Except, of course, on Valentine’s Day.
If you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy What Comes Between Mother and Crone?, The Silver Revolution, and Of Sweethearts and Sperm Banks: A Twenty-First Century Love Story.