I broke with my boyfriend three days before Valentine’s Day, a decision that, I am aware, was less than ideal. But it was the best one that I have ever made, for it brought me home to myself. It allowed me to hold myself up after months of trying to coach something else into the right way of doing it. Walking away from that relationship, while feeling cruel and unfair to this human who did nothing but love and respect me, showed me that I am far stronger than I ever believed. It showed me that, despite everything, I really do believe in love more than anything else in this world. For what other reason do any of us have to leave a fine lover, if not for the sake of finding a brilliant one; one that makes us feel as if there are a thousand tiny butterflies dancing across our skin?

After emerging from an adolescence that left me, as it leaves so many of us, scathed and afraid to trust, I found myself sliding all too easily into the toxic behavior of being “cool”. I never wanted to be the one who cared more, loved more, got hurt more, ever again. Perhaps that is why I dated someone that, from the very beginning, I think I knew that I would never love. And I am so sorry for the ways in which that hurt him. I want to curl up in a ball and cry for the ways in which I know that I hurt him, and for all the humans who get hurt everyday because of the unhealed pain of others. As someone who has known both sides of a breakup, we do it often, and we do it well. But I have found now, after spending all of those months wishing that I could feel something, anything, that to be the one who cares and loves less is nothing but floating through an abysmal state of loneliness. The kind that hollows you. The kind that makes you wish for a fire, even if you can still remember the ways in which you have been burned. I think of W. H. Auden’s poem, The More Loving One, and how as human beings with fleeting flesh and finite time, it is the most that any of us can ever do to be the more loving one every chance that we get. And if you find that you cannot do that, if you cannot love this person with every atom of your being, you must instead find the courage to leave.

So I chose to spend this fourteenth of February alone, observing love. I watched my neighbor open her door to find an embarrassingly beautiful bouquet on her doorstep from her husband, half the world away. I bought myself a coffee and smiled at all of the couples holding each others hands; holding each others hearts. I walked through the world all day and noticed the look on each girl’s face who clutched flowers in her arms. And the strangest sensation of uncontrollable joy washed over me. To see all of these displays of romantic love did not make me feel alone, but rather more connected than ever to the strangers all around me. For their small displays of love gave me endless hope. To see other people experiencing what you desire most in this world is like medicine, for you know that it exists. You can see it on every street corner if you just look.

So whether it makes you sick or not, whether you know love, want love, or have lost love and are still just finding your way, happy day of it all.

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