The Beauty of Divorcing Valentine’s Day

There was an unexpected knock on my door the morning of my first Valentine’s Day after divorce.

I didn’t have a boyfriend. My emotion stability was still highly unreliable. My deepest desire was for this day, which seemed to focus exclusively on the kind of love I didn’t have, to wrap up quickly.

I opened the door to a floral delivery worker who handed me a red vase with a beautiful plant popping up from the middle. It was the brightest sight against the snow-covered yard of my Michigan home, and I was surprised at the gift and curious about the giver. I looked at the card and was touched to read that one of my best girlfriends had simply written, “I love you.” I was overwhelmed with gratitude for her thoughtfulness and for seeing me on this day, even as I felt my divorce was leading me to hide.

I spent the rest of the day avoiding expressions of love, retreating inward, and willing the day to end.

After that, I divorced Valentine’s Day.

If you’re going through or recovering from divorce, you know that it pushes you, painfully at times, to reimagine, reform, and refocus your relationship with your former partner and with yourself. In my own divorce over a decade ago, I had to picture and create something that held on to what truly mattered while also letting the longing for more fade. My divorce from Valentine’s Day followed similar, although less painful, lines. To divorce Valentine’s Day, I just sat with this singular question:

What does this holiday need from me to become life giving again?

What it needed, I realized, was a return to its essence, and Valentine’s Day is now, for me, a time to love my people with abandon. My kids, my parents, and my girlfriends who carried me through the darkest days get an intentional and extra dose of attention and love during those 24 hours. It’s also a time for me to love on my own self – though tired and maturing, still beautiful and creative. I decided that Valentine’s Day doesn’t get to exist joyfully just for the coupled and in love; it gets to exist on the terms I create and in ways I invent.

One of the gifts of midlife is the realization that we really are making up all of this. There’s reality, and then there’s the story we tell about reality. Inbetween the two is room for a great deal of creativity. Don’t borrow old stories about holidays and force them to fit the wide, expansive, free soul you now have after years of experience. Divorced or not, this Valentine’s Day, practice what it means to expand love beyond cultural tradition and delight your people in ways they’d never expect.

Oh, and send your divorcing friend some flowers while you’re at it.

Reprinted from Pro-Age Woman eMagazine