When I was 12, all the girls in my seventh-grade class rallied together and gave me a group Valentine’s Day card. Sweet, right? Wrong! It was right around the time I began to understand my affection for boys. Suffice it to say that throughout the years---although my mother cheerfully referenced the group card from year-to-year, maintaining a hopeful outlook---Valentine’s Day has generally represented uncertain times for me. This year---after a recent breakup---appears to be garnering similar results. Thus, as-of-late, like everything around me, I too have been in a recession. A love recession.
Then, several weeks back, I finally emerged from my depression/recession. The day was flawless: clear, cornflower-blue sky, mid-seventies, shorts-in-the-middle-of-winter flawless. Why we love southern California flawless. Shiny day I thought. Why not have a shiny car to go with my shiny mood, and decided to wash my car.
After proceeding through the ticketing-vacuuming part of the line, I went inside to pay. Once the elderly Asian woman punched another hole in my car wash card, I did what I’ve done since boyhood: I waited to watch my truck get towed through the succession of scrubbers. While lingering, I became distracted by the array of steering wheel covers and dangly, scented items. (The amount of choices is crazy.) Then, somewhere between the spinning rack of cheap sunglass and the shelf of assorted car polishes, without noticing, I landed in the greeting card section---even worse, the Valentine’s Day section.
Thoughts of my ex-boyfriend came streaming back. Ugh! My shiny mood promptly dulled. Up until then, I’d been relatively successful in avoiding the approaching day—particularly the cards. And just as I started to turn away---like taking a bullet---my eye caught the monkey with the big red lips. Instantly, I became like one of those annoying people who drives slowly by a car crash to scrutinize the wreckage. Even worst, I picked up the card and opened it. A deafening primate screech ensued, followed by and even louder kissing sound---each successfully conjuring up awful, loserish feelings. (The nickname/term of endearment for ex was “monkey.”) Instantly miserable, I returned the card to its slot and swiftly fled. Just as I reached the windowed wall, my truck was being swallowed up by the massive, sudsy spinners. My heart felt akin: like someone had dragged it off into some dark hole. Here we go again, I thought, alone on Valentine’s Day. Classic.
Like a zombie, I trailed my car down the long glassed-in hallway---the kiss and screech of the card still mocking my thoughts. I tried to distract myself by focusing on the collage of film and television stars along the opposite wall. They all looked so happy, starring back at me from their framed spots. I wondered what Dianne Carroll was doing for Valentine’s Day. Then Carol Burnett, was she hopelessly in love? Then came Shirley Jones: would she be alone this year or busy plotting a romantic candle-lit dinner for two? Some of the photographs had notes scribbled across them. Loves notes like, “Nobody does it better”, love Jessica Hahn, and “To Sammy, love,” Dolly Parton.
Love. Love. Love! Every direction I turned, love was starring me in the face. Worse, kissing me from a card. I was surrounded by love! And I hated it.
By the time I reached the end of the hallway, I was back to miserable and slumped onto one of the benches, focusing on the small Latino man vigorously rubbing sheen back into my car. Like him, I tried to find a bright spot. A lovely thought about love. I thought about my first love—a second-grade sprite named Leslie, the lucky recipient of my mother’s opal and diamond cocktail ring. I thought of the group card from seventh grade. The flip-flop succession of girls to boys to women to men and then just men---my New York men and then my L. A. loves. I’d loved a lot of people for a lot of years! But there I was, alone again. Valentine’s Day looming large and still, I hadn’t gotten it right. While sulking and pondering, across from me in the quad of benches sat an elderly woman reading the paper. She glanced up from her newspaper and looked me in the eye, then smiled. “Are you alright,” she asked.
“Oh, oh,..um…I,I,I’m fine. Thanks,” I said, forcing a smile, but mortified inside. Did I look that sad---someone to warrant concern? Apparently.
She went back to reading the paper, but in that moment, I realized something essential about love. I realized, that love is all around us everyday. It’s on the wall at the car wash, it’s in a smile from a stranger, it’s in each and every person that touches our lives--- depending on how you see it, what you choose to do with it.
When I got up to leave, I said goodbye and thank you to the lady reading the newspaper. And then I did something socially weird. I turned back and said, “Oh..and Happy Valentine’s Day.” She smiled back. It spoke volumes. And as I got back in my freshly washed truck and pulled off the lot, my attitude about love felt rejuvenated.
So here’s a piece of loving advice: If, like me, this Valentine’s Day feels as if your heart is in a recession, go into your savings account. Go back and remember all those you’ve loved, all the special people in your life, who---for good or bad---made your capacity to love grow a little bit more. Why? Because it’s important to remember that no matter how much you have loved, who you’ve loved---even if some have gotten away, or left, or cheated---that as humans, we have a huge capacity to love. Time after time, year after year, over and over again, we have the ability to fall hopelessly in love---if we want. Then….pass it on.
For the great men, my L.A. story---Chunky, Dalton, Ron, Cin, Joey, Batman, CJ and most of all Monkey---who’ve made my capacity to love, that much greater.
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