Don't say 'no' to love

The people who hate Valentine's Day tend to be like the little kids who go to their friends' birthday parties and get mad because they're not the ones getting presents.

Over the years, I have heard far too many people complain about this holiday. Many repeat the old cant about it being invented for commercial purposes and devoid of any real meaning. A surprising number of people are also completely willing to admit that they hate Valentine's Day because they have never had a Valentine of their own or just don't happen to have one this year.

Don't get me wrong. I hope I am the last person on Earth to ever scorn loneliness or unrequited love. It really can suck to be alone.

I hope I never attempt to belittle the big, serious emotional pain and heartbreak that so many people feel. Most relationships, if they get to happen at all, are probably going to fail, and "for aught that I could ever read, could ever hear by tale or history, the course of true love never did run smooth." Faint heart never won fair lady.

Still, it's easy to feel that because nothing ever seems to work out how we planned that there is no plan. It's easy to be seduced into looking around and determining that we live in a dark world without any pattern or Providence, and that what we call love and romance are naive illusions and mere flutterings of the central nervous system.

It's amazing how many smug, self-styled "people in the know" think that they are somehow more modern (whatever that means) and sophisticated because they no longer believe in romance. The truth, however, isn't that true romance doesn't exist. It just might not have existed for you.

So, what are we to do if we keep getting disappointed? What about people who have been disappointed their whole life? Most people grow bitter and give up trying, and we really should feel sympathy for these love-cowards.

When things don't seem to be working, I try to remember what the arch-lover himself, Lancelot, said to Guinevere in "The Once and Future King" when he had been defeated several times in a row: "I knelt down in the water of Mortoise, Jenny, where he had knocked me - and I thanked God for the adventure."

To go back to my opening simile, we need to learn how to enjoy presents that aren't necessarily ours. It may seem strange to enjoy things that aren't "for" us, but I never owned a sunset or a starry sky either. That is not to say that we should give up on those presents, but none of us get to choose our adventure, and make no mistake, it is an adventure.

Today might be someone else's day. Tomorrow might be yours, and some things really are worth working and waiting for.

While doing our best toward that goal though, until victory or a definite no, it seems to me that we have to just chill out and raise our glass to true friendships, cool breezes, ice cream, snow days, champagne, good music, great books, painting, swimming, pets, trips, fireflies and a thousand other of the glittering, glorious and beautiful things around us.

Marco

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