Making love to myself this Valentine's Day

It's not what  you think. Not at all. 

My inbox's spiritual gem this morning directed me to show some love ~ to myself this Valentine's Day. And the way I do that these days is to blog. Writing is by far the most self-fulfilling, self-esteemable, self-a-licious thing I do right now. So if I may, I will proceed to indulge myself in a Little Love Story in 3 Parts: I'll start with a reflection backwards, then get current with today, then end with a wish for Valentine's Days to come. 

PART I

Just 4 years ago today I shared with you already that I was driving through the soaking rain to a cheesy single's mixer in a cheesy hotel lobby in the cheesy city of L.A. I never finished the story: I met a man that night. A really cool man. A distinguished man. A handsome man. He was so taken by my that he invited me away from the mixer to have drinks and dinner with him alone in the hotel restaurant. Our conversation flowed easily, our smiles gleamed readily and his compliments sprinkled me in wishfulness. He got my number and waited the obligatory 3 1/2 -4 days to call, we played phone tag a couple of rounds, had two very promising phone conversations, then nothing. I don't know why. He just disappeared. And that pretty much ties up in a ribbon and bow my 8 year odyssey of dating in L.A. Nonsensical, nonsequeter, nonstop.

PART II

Today my two early bird Valentine boys woke me up at 5:05am and 6:15am, we had morning story time, then dressed warm and went out on a puddle walk to Vons, got Daddy some croissants, played in the fountains and got back just in time for my husband to walk out of the bedroom at 9am to tell me "Happy Valentine's Day" with a kiss and hug. Not just any hug. But a good, long meaningful hug. That's all it took to erase my residual rage at G for noncompliance walking back up the hill home. I felt my husband's love for me and flashed back to all those days upon nights upon years I was waiting impatiently for him to come into my life. And he is here now and I love him so. He is my real life Valentine.

PART III

And so for the future my wish is that we continue deepening in our love, compassion and support for one another. That each successive Valentine's Day demarcate another year of life lived side by side, for the awesome better or the dreaded worse. Lord knows we dialed up a doosy having two babies within 3 years of meeting one another at that bar that fateful night. We've weathered some incredibly raw moments. May next Valentine's Day reflect a year just a bit more top heavy with fun than bottom heavy with toil. 

mmmmmmmm, that felt good.

PS. In case you've been reading along with me, I did finally make it to Victoria's Secret yesterday with a boy in each arm, tethering their wildly reaching hands as the sales assistant helped me pick out my 5 for $25 cotton low riders. I'm of course wearing the ones polka-dotted with little red hearts today.