Vol. 1, Post #6 Sentimental Old Bitch

Valentine’s Day: you’ll be surprised what I think of it. The latest in my sex tips for girls* (*girls who are holding on to midlife by a thread). A dating odyssey for Young Olds, AKA, people w/readers

Let’s get this out of the way. Valentine’s Day in its current incarnation is a commercialized shit show but it has an interesting back story which I’ve linked here from Britannica.com, the best piece of info being this:  It has been suggested that Valentine’s Day has origins in the Roman festival of Lupercalia, held in mid-February, which celebrated the coming of spring, included fertility rites and the pairing off of women with men by lottery.

I could make a whole post out of that ^^^ alone. Lottery!

I’m writing about Valentine’s Day in advance of the 14^th, of course. It’s become my habit to write on weekends, so that I can read and edit up to Tuesday night in drafts before my usual Wednesday post. With something as deadly as Valentine’s Day, I may be editing right up to pub date.

As much as this is a bullshit day that is set up to make at least half of the population feel bad about themselves, I like Valentine’s Day, if for no other reason than I enjoy saying I Love You. I say it all the time, in many different forms, because:

1.     No one gets tired of hearing “I love you” and if I’ve learned nothing else in my life, it’s that you’ll never regret saying how you feel.

2.     It seems like generationally, many of the menfolk that I know grew up in houses where the father figures/male figureheads were somewhat reserved in displaying emotions. These guys need to hear “I love you” normalized, even now.

3.     Sometimes love needs to be a little less serious. Sometimes love needs a healthy dose of smartass in its delivery, because let’s face it, love can be petrifying even when intentions are genuine, pure, and good. We all know THAT person, right? The one who needs to be loved more than anyone else, but who is scared shitless at the mere thought of “I love you.” For the scaredy cats among us, I like saying I love you with a little sass built in, like via any of the Valentine’s Day posts from Instagram accounts that I find wickedly funny: @80svintagepulps, and @theyellowhairedgirl, and @vintagefantasymag.

(I must also tell you that the image of the “vintage” Valentine’s Day card [“I wanna make you squirt!” hee hee hee hee — I smell a new topic for an upcoming post!] which I’ve used to illustrate this week’s post, is from the super smartypants’ artistic mind of Femmmeow and if you like, you can take a peek at other goodies in their online shop. I’m a big fan!)

My own preference for professing love (both sincerely and irreverently) aside, the other real reason I like Valentine’s Day or any other occasion to go out of my way to show love, is because I was so unloved as a kid.

I know it may sound preposterous to us “activated” parents and adults who embrace therapy or meds or both (or at least yoga or meditation or fresh air) as a form of healing and sanity, but some of us were raised by people who were not cut out for the job of selflessly loving a child, based on their own damage. I’m one of those people.

I was brought up in a home where my parents made this very clear: you did not step out of line with regard to their mandated social mores and any derivation of this was a punishable offense. In my house, that meant that you dated only Jews, you stayed fairly close to home for college (and you went to college because if not, this was some sort of shame on the family), you went into a career that would fast-track you to wealth and comfort, you married another Jew, you were close to your parents in that you would live in a neighboring area so that they could see their grandchildren as often as they wanted, and subsequently, you attended the same synagogue or country club as your parents so that they could show off their handiwork of A Perfect Family to their friends.

As you might imagine, I had almost zero interest in ANY of the above. (Save for first marriage and college. First marriage was to a man I still wildly adore and admire, who happened to be Jewish. Re. college, I wanted to go to journalism school, and I fought like hell to make that happen. At the age of 11, I told my parents I wanted to be a writer. “Be a dog catcher,” my father sniffed. “At least then you’ll have a job.”)

Adding insult to injury, my parents were deeply insecure people, motivated by what their friends thought, as well as petrified of being outed as “less than” in the affluent Philadelphia suburb where we lived – they survived hand-to-mouth, racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars in credit card debt (yes you read that figure correctly), as they were mortified at the idea of not keeping up with The Jones), so my lack of desire to conform was very threatening to them. I raised too many red flags in their eyes, and I was punished often, sometimes cruelly, and regularly told how unlovable I was.

For some odd reason (and every therapist I’ve seen has said this to me), I just DIDN’T BELIEVE THEM. I knew that I was pretty great, and I also knew there had to be other adults who would act as adoptive parents to me, who would love and protect me if I needed them (I did). This set up a model for how I yearned to live. All of my life, I was drawn to artistic, iconoclastic people, many of them becoming close friends and confidantes who are my chosen family, people I trust beyond words. My son has an extended chosen family like me, not because he was unloved (he is exalted to the heavens by me and most people who know him) but because that’s the way I raised him – to invite others in. Our door is open to anyone who wants to pull up a Love Chair to the Love Table and join our Love Party. Likewise, I am the proud “Auntie” to any number of young adults that I love as if they were my own kids. Every day is Valentine’s Day around here.

Which brings me back to February 14th.  Ready for me to spill a few other deeply personal tidbits?

Valentine’s Day is five days ahead of my birthday, and as we know, February is an abbreviated month that is split down the middle with a holiday weekend. The almost constant threat of crappy weather here in the Northeast usually means one has to factor snow dates into the mix when planning a party (also factoring in the friends who like winter sports and take off during Prez Weekend to indulge), so it’s sometimes hard to gather. What a bore! Because the two dates (the 14th and the 19th) are so close to each other, I tend to turn the entire week into a veritable Love Fest and not everyone thinks this is so swell. I’ve had a few partners who hated their own birthdays and couldn’t imagine why a grown woman enjoyed hers so much, to say nothing about wanting to make it into a major bacchanal. Apart from that, I’ve also had a few bouts of Valentine’s Day drama. Here are some highlights (lowlights?):

1.     The partner from whom I split in the previous December, deciding to call me drunk on Valentine’s Day, which also was my “Surprise! I fell off the wagon!” alert, given that this partner had been long-time sober. He went on a deeply damaging bender on my birthday a few days later. It was shocking and sad; my heart was a dead weight in my chest for nearly a year after that.

2.     Your basic “I miss you” text from a former partner who was so so SO hard to get over despite my best efforts, who did not miss me in the least, but sure as fuck missed his regular supply of emotional support and sex, so he took his best shot, telling me that he could change. Great. Change and then you can show me, not tell me about it, was my response. I never heard from him again. My heart felt like someone took an X-ACTO knife to it all over again.

3.     The Valentine’s Day when one of my now-exes informed me that while we were making plans for our upcoming move in together and had even discussed getting married, they wanted me to know that “I can barely take care of myself and my kid, so I hope you don’t expect me to take care of you.” I think they thought they were just being honest about their limitations. Guess what? I chose Love Conquers All, like a total masochist. We moved in together anyway and it was most certainly NOT fun while it lasted. Abbe is always a romantic, oy.

I think it’s safe to assume that for every person who says they don’t really care about Valentine’s Day, that it’s just another silly soppy sentimental load of Hallmark horseshit, another person will retort that, “Yeah, you don’t care because you have a Significant Other, but if you’re single, it’s a pretty depressing day, even if it’s only a blip on the calendar.”

Which brings us up to present day, Dear Readers, and the moment when I tell you that on this Valentine’s Day, I am at a crossroads. I am not entirely single and not entirely involved with someone, meaning that today, I get to straddle both lanes on the Love Highway.

Sounds like a potential Valentine’s Day pile up about to happen, no?

I’ll give you the short version of this story, which is that almost no one thinks the man I am currently in love with is a good fit for me. Sometimes I agree with them. Our situation tends to be a little impossible. Impossible because our schedules do not mesh. Also impossible because we can’t stay away from each other. In the three years we’ve been on and off (mostly on) with each other, we vacillate between honest assessments of our availability vs. our desire for each other, and as you already might’ve guessed, desire always wins out. I bought him a vintage postcard at least six months ago as a Valentine’s Day card since it speaks to a private joke that we laugh about in bed (and I’m one of those weirdos who can slink around a stationery store all day). In comparison, I wonder if he’ll remember it is Valentine’s Day today, because sometimes it’s a stretch for him to even remember that it’s a Wednesday. He tends to have two speeds: in the kitchen turned up to 11 (he’s a chef, big surprise) or dozing on his sofa after a grueling night of service.  

But I’ll give him this postcard, and a small gift when I see him next and in the meantime, I’ll be here, managing feelings that might pop up around spending the day apart from the person I crave, a day that is, in fact, a made-up holiday, but a day of note nevertheless if you like to speak fluent Love.

I’ll keep you posted regarding what happens later today on Valentine’s Day – does my guy remember? Does he not remember? Does it even matter?

But, in the meantime, here’s something that matters. I love you.

I love you, my Dear Readers who have subscribed to this Substack (how you make me blush with delight!) who read and support my work and share and leave comments on what they’ve felt as they digest my words. My Double D cups runneth over.

I love you, my Dear Friends and Chosen Family, who have encouraged me to write about this bursting-at-the-seams moment in my life when I feel like I have a lot to say. Our conversations are often the basis for these posts. Thank you for igniting my spark. Related: I love you, my Darling Child, because you have certainly heard it all spring forth from my mouth (and pen) and you seem to have the stomach to take it in. You are a brave, talented, funny, empathic, strong yet vulnerable man and you are the greatest Valentine I share with the world.

I love you, my Dear Clients because let’s face it, in my professional life, it would be completely understandable if you said, “Um, Abbe, no, I don’t want my publicist writing about dating (much less fucking) online.” Not one has said anything remotely like that. I love my job. I REALLY love my job!

I love you, my Dear Exes (caveat here – there are a few of you who really blew us to smithereens, and as I love myself more than I love you, I exclude you from this list; you sadly know who you are). Each of you shared a piece of yourself with me that changed who I was for the better. I can never repay you the knowledge you imparted on me, and I hope you can say the same.

I love you, my Dear Broken Parents, long dead and so full of disappointments and fears. Maybe it’s strange to say this but your inability to see me and love me for who I am gave me the fortitude to do it myself. My resilience, my ability to thrive, and my single-minded focus on living the kind of life that makes me happy to my core is most likely a result of your neglect. At this age, I’m at peace with all of it. And unlike you, I’m a really really really good parent.

Happy Valentine’s Day, Lovers whose bodies and minds I know like the back of my hand, and Strangers who I only know by name or email via the internet. Be good to yourselves, take chances, and love hard, and, as the The Patron Saint of New York Public Access Television Robin Byrd used to say when she signed off each night, “Lie back and get comfortable, snuggle up next to your loved one, and if you don’t have a loved one, you always have me.”