Valentine's Day Thoughts

I won't even pretend to wish everyone a happy Valentine's Day. I'm usually all alone on this holiday celebrating the ability of everyone else in the whole fucking world to find a mate, and today was no exception. Sure, I sent a card to "Torrie" and received a virtual card from her (but only after I told her I was mailing her a card), but I didn't get to spend the day with her or anyone else. My bed as usual will be empty tonight. Selfish? Goddamn right. If I don't feel for me, who the fuck will?

I did kiss a woman on the cheek, a woman whom I fell in love with years ago when we both worked at the Chicago Board Options Exchange. This woman, "Yasmine," happens to be taking classes at the same school I am, and I saw her a couple of weeks ago when I was buying books across the street from the school. I almost fainted. I had not seen her in three years, and I did not expect to ever see her again. This was not a romantic rekindling of a prior affair, however. My love for Yasmine was always gently rebuked and never returned, the proverbial banging my head against a wall. She was too nice to tell me that she wasn't interested in me, but the truth is, she wasn't interested in me. Five years of chasing her should have told me that, but again, I was in love. In a way I never have felt as strongly about a woman as I did about Yasmine, and it was just so ironic that after five years of giving her roses and cigars and cards on Valentine's Day and getting nothing in return that I finally let go of her in my heart so that I could make room for the women that would use and abuse me over the last couple of years, and now that I've been mentally beaten down, here she is, on Valentine's Day, back in my life, if only for a four-minute conversation about nothing. But at least I no longer think that I'm going to convince her to give me a chance. I know damn well that nothing will ever happen between us, and I've accepted that. I'll have the entire pathetic Yasmine story in my next post.

I did not sleep all weekend, and I think it was because I knew Valentine's Day was coming, and at this time last year I was in that great cosmopolitan town of Mukwonago, WI, giving jewelry and poems and flowers to "Karen" and watching her respond not with glee or gratification but with the statement "Oh no, please, no more gifts!" Wow, honey, I'm glad you appreciate all I'm doing for you. I was talking to a friend about my lack of rest concerning this anxiety, and she responded, "I can tell you still love her." I've thought a lot about that, not just recently, but last year when all the drama happened. I've come to the conclusion that I never loved Karen. I am not feeling anxious because I was in love with Karen. I'm feeling anxious because I was in love with the concept of Karen. The concept was that she was a nice, sweet, quiet, demure, intelligent white woman who accepted my advances, thought I was attractive, and wanted me to be a part of her life. I should have known that was too good to be true. But that was my mindset at this time last year. As I laid down to sleep with Karen in her bed in Mukwonago, WI, on Valentine's Day night, I was thinking to myself, I'm moving up here soon to start a new life with Karen, one that will result in marriage and children in the future. And I couldn't have been happier, even if I wasn't really attracted to her, even if she was lousy in bed, even with the gaps in logic that made me suspect her before I ever found out what kind of pond scum she was. She was my dream personified, and I thought that my personal life was finally settled.

That's why I can't sleep. A year ago, everything was perfect on Planet Dre. Then the 10.0 quake tore up my world. Maybe five years from now I won't feel so bad when this time of year rolls around. Right now, I feel like someone ripped up my stomach from the inside. Happy Valentine's Day indeed.