Valentine's Day for the Broken

I don't pay a lot of attention to most holidays. I used to have a really difficult time with them, actually, with massive let-downs because of unrealistic expectations on my part, on top of a few really horrific memories to cap it off. Valentine's Day was one of them. To give an example of a horrific memory, I'll share a personal experience of mine.

My first husband had issues. He was suicidal and insecure beyond belief. For Valentine's Day, and a day prior to the actual day, he brought home some sort of balloon & flower arrangement. The following day, which was actually Valentine's Day, I had to go see my doctor. During my absence Bruce (there's a reason I'm comfortable using his name here - he's dead - keep reading) decided to read my journal. I used to keep hand-written ones in coil-bound, full-size notebooks. I'd go through one of those in a couple of months sometimes. It's a habit I've discontinued for good reason.

Well, Bruce didn't like what he read. I came home to find a survival knife (mine, to be exact) stabbed through the balloon heart, all the way through my journal and lodged in my desktop. It was the first thing I saw when I walked into the house. My response? A typical, "Problem?" said with arched brows.

What followed was the scariest and most humiliating night of my life. He threatened me over and over, and threw things at me, forcing me to put up with it. He threatened me with the knife, he dared me to go after it to use it against him. In response I actually laughed, and said I wasn't that stupid. He was about 6'1" if I recall accurately, and probably outweighed me by sixty or eighty pounds. My only option would have been to actually kill him, and I wasn't prepared to do that just then.

Finally, after hours of this hellish Valentine's Day, he decided to just leave. As he was leaving he decided to throw a few more jabs, like his fraudulent use of my mother's credit card, and the supposed fact that he'd cheated on me with four different women in the back of his car. Personally I think he was lying about that, and I didn't really care at that point anyway. His parting shot was to tell me that he would kill me if I called the cops or tried to take his daughter away from him. I didn't call the cops, but I ran more than 3,000 kilometres away, and then I hid for two years. Usually sleeping with my knife under my pillow, and waking up screaming almost every night when I finally managed to fall asleep around 3 AM.

What I did was blatantly illegal. He hadn't been denied any parental rights at this point, and there was no restraining order against him. I knew if I went to court he would be notified about my location, and I couldn't risk it. I had no legal justification whatsoever. Did I care? Nope. Not a single iota. He wasn't getting near my daughter after that. I'd reconciled myself to killing him at this point. If he came after me, I would do whatever it took.

About two and a half years after the incident Bruce was killed in a trucking accident. He actually died a hero, saving a school bus full of kids. He didn't die right away either, so he suffered - I feel terrible about that now. When I first got the news all I could feel was grateful that I didn't have to go through a divorce. Then, after a while the reality sank in. Bruce had been my best friend in high school for two years before we started going out. Now he was dead. I didn't even find out until long after the funeral. In case you're wondering, no, I didn't have anything to do with it. Not that I'd probably admit to it if I had, but I didn't even know where he was.

It took a long time to reconcile those feelings. Anger at the Valentine's Day incident, loss of a best friend, regret that things hadn't been different, sadness that my daughter's biological father was gone, and the knowledge that none of these feelings mattered because it was too late to do anything about them. He'd had issues. Major ones. He was too risky to have around my daughter, or even me, at the time he walked out. I have no illusions there. However, he was also really young. Twenty-two the last day I saw him, I believe. He should have had a chance to work his problems out.

He never physically hurt me. He did change me, though. I toughened up, that's for certain. Despite a bad childhood, or perhaps because of it, I put up with behaviour from him that I never should have put up with, and I learned from him not to do that. I hardened to the point that I knew I would never allow a man to intimidate me ever again. I didn't care about the risks. I would stand up and use my mouth how I saw fit. I had to temper that with my empathy, of course, so that I didn't lash out indiscriminately, which took a bit of self-education and practice. Okay, more than a bit. Years in fact. I couldn't have been very easy to live with during those times.

The other side effect was a fear of Valentine's Day, and then later an abhorrence of it once the fear slipped away. After a few years, though, I lost the negative feelings. I had a few good experiences after that, which took care of the rest of the healing with respect to the celebration of love that it's supposed to be (yes, it's a commercialized thing, but it's still good to celebrate love, I think). Now I'm content to celebrate it if there's a reason to do so, and just as content to let it slip by unnoticed if there isn't. I prefer the former, I've discovered, so I guess I've managed to heal well enough.

Cherish one another, even when things aren't great, even when you think a person doesn't deserve it, and even when you don't feel like it. It's worth it in the long run. The more love in this world, (whether it's gay, straight, platonic or familial,) the better. You can never go back and change your mind, and it's a hell of a lot better to know that you're a person who cares against all odds, than to know how well you hold a grudge.