I Got a Heart On

I used to really love Christmas. I collected a ridiculous amount of Christmas decorations, especially the vintage plastic, kitschy stuff, and I hung it up and had, "Christmas in July," parties and loved giving gifts and making ham or whatever. And it seemed like the world was bright. Then, I had the worst Christmas I've ever had when my exhusband and I began the slow descent into the end of our marriage the November before the Christmas season of 2014. That Christmas Day my mother had too many Christmas-themed drinks and was so hungover she couldn't get out of bed. We took our laundry to my parents house and spent the day in opposite chairs watching things like, "The Price is Right," at an ear-splitting decibel level with my deaf father, eating a shitty meal and opening gift cards to each other and from each other.

When there are no kids to celebrate, Christmas becomes oddly unimportant and when you have the beginning of no marriage, it seems even more surreal. It was as if I was riding the Polar Express on a slow decline...jingling all the way.

This year, I celebrated Christmas in a different way when I visited the Sister of St. Joseph in Baden, PA and saw their program for the 100th anniversary of the writing of the carol, "In a Manger Lowly." More than many Christmases before, this seemed more relevant to the feeling that Christmas should evoke. My Atheist heart really doesn't embrace the religious ideals in the way that the sisters do, but the part of me that is the Empath feels their joy in a totally palpable and very emotional way. That afternoon this past December was sweet and tender and the sisters are the real heroes of Catholicism in a way that even this really cool Pope doesn't convey. The works that these sisters do is beyond selfless and the people that they have helped go on to spread the love that it seems should come from the hearts of every believer when they exit every service. Meeting those women was life-changing. It made me proud to be American (which is miraculous) and a Feminist (although I am always proud of that). I am hoping that I can continue my relationship with the sisters.

So, when you've stopped loving a thing that you were once passionate about because the reasons were never really clear...or because the grief that you had about the life that you thought you were going to live is finally gone, you can start to think about what you really ACTUALLY like. And you know what? I fucking love St. Valentine's Day. There. I said it (There are other things that I think I love,too, but there are other discoveries for other posts).

Whatever the modern feeling I am supposed to feel about corporatization and the capitalistic tendencies about it all, I really like it. I like hearts, I like pink and red lacy doodads and I like the idea that there is a day where you love someone and you give them a card and tell them about it. Much like Christmas or any other gift-giving holiday, people can choose to take the sentiment and turn it into a display of affluence, but that is their business. I like flowers, I like cards, I like someone writing goddamn XO after their name and I especially like when they mean it. There is an estimate that 190 million valentines are sent every year in America and people bitch about their legitimacy. Much like those that start going to the gym on January 1, if just 1% of those attempts are fruitful, then it is a success of epic proportion, isn't it? It feels like another source of polarization in some ways - that just because you have found an instance of insincerity, it doesn't mean that all instances are insincere. Much like the sisters and their faith, there are instances of divine love. And yinz guys...they can come from you. Or me. Or the people you love.

There are houses without even attempts at this sincere love and merriment - and my marriage housed such a sentiment. My exhusband made it very clear that he was not interested in Valentine's Day because it was a materialistic and commercial, "Hallmark Holiday." So, I hid that I liked it and I convinced myself that I didn't like it at all for whatever hipstery and tortured reason I could come up with when someone asked me why I didn't get a card or flowers. It turns out that there are a lot of things that he did that were his way of not dealing with other people and their feelings on any level that didn't make him completely selfishly comfortable in every moment. Unfortunately, the holidays were the least harmful victims of this behavior. Still though, when the marriage was officially over and I realized that I was free and that I could openly profess that I liked romantic things (even though I kind of have no idea how to do them after nine years of not doing them) and that I liked silly things and that I cared about getting a card on St. Valentine's Day, there was that sense that I lifted the veil to releasing the, "sweetness," as my therapist calls it. There is so much rhetoric surrounding people having low esteem or women allowing themselves to be treated poorly or not to be treated at all...but there is a sense that the sweetness and the tenderness are often ignored for whatever reason - it is weak, it is embarrassing, it is too feminine, or most likely...it is too risky to be that vulnerable. St. Valentine's Day can be the door to letting it in, releasing that maybe it feels good and maybe doing some kind of alternating Wednesday of love. At least to start, right? Mark your calendars! If St. Valentine's Day can mean that people let love in, then it hardly seems engineered by Hallmark just to sell cards completely, does it?

It seems highly unlikely, anyway, that all of these awesome songs about loving love, kissing, being sweet and St. Valentine's Day stuff are all for naught, right? I have secretly adored love songs for about as long as I can remember...starting with listening to Troy Shondell's, "Girl After Girl," on my brown and orange Fisher Price record player (I think that it might have been a b-side because I was hipster at five). When you secretly have a penchant for love songs...the list grows and grows. Some of my favorites, in no particular order:

- The Hollies - The Air that I Breathe 

- Roy Orbison - You Got It

- Michael Jackson - The Way You Make Me Feel

- The Bellamy Brothers - Let You Love Flow (this was one of my Grandmother's favorites, so when I hear it in passing, I often feel that she is checking in)

- Carole King - I Feel the Earth Move

- The Miracles - You've Really Got a Hold on Me

- Aaron Neville - Tell it Like it Is (this was my Great Aunt's (My Grandmother's best friend and sister-in-law) favorite song, so I'm always thinking about that pistol of a lady when I hear this one)

- Bill Withers - Lovely Day (to be fair, Bill Withers could sing me the results of my colonoscopy.)

- Foster and Lloyd - Sure Thing

- The Stray Cats - My One Desire

- Elvis Presley - One Night

- Neil Diamond - Girl, You'll be a Woman Soon

- Dale Watson - Call Me Insane

- Murder by Death - Good Morning, Magpie

- Steve Ray Vaughan - Lenny

- Leon Bridges - Lisa Sawyer

- Sam and Dave - Hold On, I'm Comin' (If you have ever traveled route 77 south and seen a chubby woman with giant hair in a white car absolutely losing it...it was me and this song)

When I was ready to release my own sweetness (or rather, I should say that it is a process of letting the compassion in and the sweetness out), I found these songs, lacy red and pink doodads and sentiments to be one of the more sincere feelings that I have ever had - even if it can be a struggle in a world that seems nasty and unforgiving. The list of love songs since then seems ever-growing and the words seem more sincere than ever.