23 years without a valentine, and i blame my dad
“But let there be spaces in your togetherness.
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love.
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of your be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone they quiver with the same music.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart.”
— The Prophet, Kahlil Gilbran
My dad read this passage to me on numerous occasions when I was growing up, drip-feeding the words to my young, porous subconscious, in the hopes that they would sink in.
No, this piece is not going to be about “daddy issues” - quite the contrary in fact.
This year, as my friends no-doubt enjoyed a good, customary Valentine’s Day bonking with their respective partners, I spent my evening third-wheeling my parents over a candle-lit meal. Two bouquets of flowers adorned the table, alongside two red envelopes: one for my Mum (naturally), and one for me — my Dad’s never failed to remind his three daughters that they are, indeed, loved.
The reality of a Valentine’s Day without a valentine isn’t new to me, but the stark awareness of my singleness each year somehow still takes me by surprise. I often get overcome with an — albeit fleeting — sense of solitude, a last-one-on-the-bench kind of feeling, before reminding myself that, though it may not be L-O-V-E (the capital-lettered kind that Nat King Cole sings about), my life is profuse with many other expressions of love.
But, in all honesty, the absence of romantic love in my life ceases to be an issue for the remaining 364 days of the year. I’m not nursing any romance-shaped chasms within my soul; I don’t particularly feel that there is anything missing.
Whilst society perpetuates the notion that singledom is something to be feared — a sign of failure or inadequacy — my Dad has raised me to see it, instead, as an opportunity: to find my own feet, and establish my independence, so that I won’t spend my future constantly needing to lean on someone else for support. Like the pillars mentioned in The Prophet, my Dad has taught me how to stand alone; and when my foundations have faltered, he’s been there to prop me up and keep me upright.
I feel refreshingly unbound by the social mandate that tells me my life’s trajectory should revolve around romantic love and a traditional nuclear family. Over the years, I’ve come to feel perfectly content in my own company, and fiercely self-sufficient. I don't buy into the theory that to be single is to be lonely, for I am one and certainly not the other. Being single feels like a valid life choice, which enables me to gallivant freely around the world, untethered, and to invest time in a multitude of friendships.
But, I do occasionally worry that I’ve internalised this approach to such a degree, that I’ve closed myself off to the potential for something wonderful. Though I don’t need romantic love to validate my time on earth, I don’t doubt that it would bring a magical new dimension to it. People say that LOVE is to have no barrier between your thoughts and someone else’s, and this is something I’ve yet to, and yearn to, experience.
Musing over my previous — admittedly brief, and evidently unsuccessful — ventures in LOVE, I realise that I’ve been resistant to loosening the grip on my independence. Our incompatibility may have partly been down to the other person in the relationship wanting me to lean on them more than I needed, or felt willing, to. My singleness has started to feel like a precious commodity, which I’m not willing to trade; I guess I fear that settling into a relationship would be at the expense of my independence and autonomy.
What I’m hoping to establish in a relationship is a sense of coexistence, as opposed to codependence — a symbiosis of two equally strong individuals. I want to be with someone who does not want to diminish my independence, but sees it as an asset — something to be championed; I want a relationship to feel like it is expanding my world, rather than impinging upon the one I’ve spent so long creating.
But there is no rush; LOVE is not a vanishing entity, it has no deadlines. So, I will continue to fortify my pillar and stand tall in my singleness, until I meet someone who wants to come and stand tall alongside me.
That’s why I blame my Dad for the fact that I spent my 23rd Valentine’s Day without a valentine: for he’s the person who taught me to feel complete without one.