Love is in the air

        Hello, lovelies.

          Today is valentine’s day, the day of love. Love is in the air. The power of love. I will always love you, and a hundred more songs telling us that love is all around. We can feel it in our fingers and even in our toes. Are they correct? Can love really fix anything? Love, love changes everything, doesn’t it. Do we really want to know what love is? If we don’t, could we leave right now, before we fall any deeper? We love our children, our partners, our parents and friends. Surly we don’t need that one day a year that we load up on flowers and chocolates to tell our loved ones how we feel, that should be something we tell them every day. And what of love at first sight? Can that really happen or it just stuff fed to us in mushy romance novels. Can love really move mountains if they’re high enough, or valley’s if they’re low enough or even a river if its deep enough, to help us find our one true love? Is love something we need to find and conquer or must love start with loving ourselves first? 

         I used to be the unluckiest person when it came to matters of the heart. I was locked into an unhappy, abusive relationship and then marriage where love was the last thing on my husband’s mind. For years, I watched as my friends would meet someone, fall in love and eventually marry. All while I wondered what was the matter with me. What was I doing wrong? Why was love there to be taken by others, and yet cupids’ arrow had never found its way into my heart. I have tried to love people, even when they didn’t deserve it, and prayed that they could love me back. I dated a couple of people once my divorce came through, and hard as I tried, I just couldn’t love them. So, I declared to the world that I was going to remain single for the rest of my life, surround myself with as many dogs as I could cram into my house, and live the quiet single life. And I must admit that at the beginning I was a little bit lonely. But as time went on, being single was lovely. I could lay diagonally across the bed if I so wished. I didn’t have to tell anyone where I was going and who I was going with. No one that I had to justify myself to. And no one I had to look after and take care of. I had found myself very happily single. And that was fantastic. Well. That was until I met Nigel. 

         Knowing my love of going to the theatre, a Christmas present from one of my best friends was 4 tickets to go and see Pride and Prejudice (sort of) at Richmond theatre. With grumbles and moaning from my children, I loaded them into the car and headed off to see a modern twist of the Austen classic. It was a hoot! I belly laughed all the way through, and my children loved it. As you know, P&P is a tale of girl meets boy. Boy acts like a twit. Girl loses boy. Girl gets boy back again. But the basic premise is, a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. And as much as I loved it, I was left with the feeling that back then, a woman’s sole purpose was to find a man, hopefully with a small fortune, and hook him into marriage. Until then, she was at a very great danger of becoming a spinster whose life would have been filled with terrible uncertainty and eventual hardships. For them, marriage was less about love, unless you happened to be Miss Elizabeth Bennet that is, and more about a family’s continuing comfort. Love wasn’t even a factor. 

          But it’s not like that now, is it? For me, it didn’t help that growing up, that us girls were told that we were only really valved if a man chose us. Or for my brother that a woman would want to trick men into marriage, but once wed, then a man could expect to have his dinner on the table as soon as he came home from work. We were not taught that being in a relationship is all about equality and partnership. We were taught that men and women wanted different things and had very different roles in a relationship. Men were the providers and women stayed at home, happily looking after their families. Men are from Mars and woman are from Venus, and all that. And I am sure that many people enjoyed those gender specific roles. But if you didn’t, does that mean that love would pass you by? What happened if you married in haste? Well, for me it meant that I repented at leisure.

          And what about those who couldn’t marry the ones they loved due to gender, race or religion? Are the centuries long rules that have been governing our lives still relevant today? Last week, Synod met to debate the merits of same sex marriage. And, honestly, I couldn’t believe it. We’re living in the 21st century, and yet we are still arguing about being allowed to marry someone of our own choosing. Haven’t we learnt by now that regardless of what someone else thinks, you should be allowed to marry whomever you wish. Isn’t that the point of religion, that we should all love one another.

        Love can be a very hot topic. We’ve been told what we should expect from a partner. Shops tell us what we should buy them. Books are crammed full of loves first kiss and that we shouldn’t expect anything less. The whole fifty shades debacle is something I will never forget. But is that what valentine’s day is all about? Today, someone asked me if I had any romantic plans for this evening. And thinking about it, I said that the most romantic thing my partner could do for me was to take the bins out. 

         For me, I believe today is not about telling someone you love them. I generally do that every day. For me it is a yearly reminder to check in with my family and friends, and even our lonely neighbours. A simple ‘hi, how you doing?’ can brighten up someone’s mood. It can remind them that they matter to us. But today is also a reminder that we need to love ourselves. I didn’t even like myself for many years and no way did I deserve happiness let alone love. But thanks to a huge amount of therapy, with the love of my friends and family, and now Nigel, I have learnt to love myself. Yes, I can be a saga wrapped up in a nightmare, but even then, it’s okay to love myself. Anyone can find love, if they start by loving themselves first. We are all worthy of love.