Hello everyone!
Last week was, in many countries all over the world, redder than Christmas day and definitely more obnoxious, due to the number of omnipresent hearts. Whether this is all background noise to you (it is to me now) or a cause of either discomfort or warm and fuzzy feelings, or just another annoyance, it is difficult to completely ignore.
Personally, I felt discomfort for years and then decided I would just ignore it. I did it in the least empowering way possible (more on that later). There is no way of knowing if your reaction to the love talk, the decorations and social norms around this day of the year, is or was similar to mine, but I hope parts of the story will resonate.
If you have read my last post, you can probably guess what gets to me now: the mountain of disposable decorations and very often useless and unimaginative gifts. That makes me think a lot, whenever I walk past them on the streets of Dublin. I wonder about the lives of the people who produced them in faraway countries. I ask myself, “Do they know anything about the people who buy them? Do they also celebrate?” Probably not. “How is their health impacted?” There are many concerns over the effects of spraying everything red using insufficient precautions and unsafe dyes (the same applies to Christmas decorations). Overall, between the consumerism and the exploitation of laborers, there are very few things to like when it comes to the day of love.
And yes, of course, you can make your own! If that is your thing, go for it! Something that is made for someone by hand with love and dedication is not only more precious, but a lot less likely to end up in a landfill soon after the festivities. In my family making Christmas decorations is now a thing, and everything is kept. It is neither convenient nor perfect, as it is time consuming and a perpetual work in progress. Nonetheless it is original and truly ours in a way what you buy at the store could never be.
For many years I couldn’t care less about the waste the day entailed, all I could see was my failure to comply with the rules of a world I did not understand. Other people had something to do, someone to be with, and I did not. Thinking about it was a form of psychological self-harm and I believed with every fiber of my being that I could only hope for an opportunity to redeem myself. One day it would be me, I would be escorted to a restaurant and receive gifts. Except that moment didn’t come. This day always came and went without anything new for me; other people changed partners innumerable times, and everyone seemed to have more fun and more options in life.
After years of not being able to keep up with society’s demands, I gave up. Yes, I did. Not in the way I gave up trying not to go bald though, in a less empowering way. I gave space to anger and frustration: they had the center stage for years. I was the lonely one, and allegedly, happily so: it was part of who I was. Everyone else was going to try to have a life that followed those rules; I was done attempting it.
Convincing myself that I did not need romance was easy after years of bitterness. I embarked on a journey to get to know myself to survive without a partner of any kind. A solo that required introspection and letting go of the anger that poisoned my days. I discovered that I would never be average enough to be that girl in my mind’s eye, who was escorted to a restaurant and given gifts. Not because I was not good enough to find a partner, but because that passivity did not agree with me. That was something true and not self-deprecating I could get behind.
As you can probably imagine the anger eventually ran out and I found love. Though I never joined the ritual of the Western World, I can now coexist with it. I can tolerate the background noise and wonder about the lives of the decoration makers, with a detachment given by experience and much needed self-exploration.
I no longer pretend not to need love, and welcome it freely in all its forms.
Up to this point, this has probably been a description of stages we have all faced at some point. Loneliness, desire for conformity, anger and discovery are all part of life. An additional thought occurred to me this week. Something has always been lacking; these years of trying to retrain myself to appreciate what I already have, had not given me any lightness. A very heavy energy hovered over my attempts to fully express joy and gratitude.
There are countless obstacles when it comes to relationships. Every single one has its own set of hurdles and difficulties. There is no space for tears during the time of the year when you celebrate success, right? Maybe there should be days to reflect on how to improve a relationship, rather than share pictures on social media, right?
This is all beside the point when you just want to appreciate. Love is often sustained by grit, playfulness, complicity and silver linings. Love is you being a maverick in the face of consumerism, social rituals and fear of loss. If you want to find a way to celebrate the people who bring love into your life (including yourself!), it certainly needs a spark of subversion. After all, don’t we like being with someone and feeling like that person understands us in that moment more than anyone else? 😉
My personal advice is to break societies’ rules (or your own) and let what you have shine!
For example I have given myself a break. Yes, a break. Not from work or play, but from sadness. I love someone who is very far away, but longing and sorrow will not define my relationship the way anger defined my lack of one.
I subvert this world of walls and borders by loving someone who has the “wrong passport” with all my heart, without being consumed by the rules that keep us apart. Sadness made me still and inactive. May lightness help me move forward! My life is full of laughter, tenderness, tears and memories, and I commemorate it by being cheerful in my resolve to smile because I need it, when I need it.
True subversion comes in different sizes, shapes and colors. Celebrating the presence of the person you love is a subversive must, a sliver of hope in this dark world. A defiant tiny candle in such inscrutable and rage-filled times.
Lightness is our candle against rage and bitterness. I would like to invite you to look at the placards of the young people who protested against the inaction of governments this week. They are angry, and they have very good reasons to be, and the very fact they are there defies complacency and inaction. Their wit and willingness to act clash with the status quo because they lead by example with wit and courage, by showing how politics has deserted the cause. They are mavericks for skipping school, according to that same world that created commercial opportunities out of holidays. They are transgressors according to conservatives, who are all about keeping things as they are.
Without that sliver of hope and lightness there is no world to imagine and save. The drop of lightness brings us forward. Bitterness and rage would feed cynicism to our love for much needed change. They would say that it is already too late, so action is not a priority. Governments are like my old self, stuck in a loop and angry at the changing world. They are immobile because they don’t want to change the rules, or at least, not in any meaningful way. Business as usual is their only horizon. Let’s broaden that! Let’s change the horizon of the myopic world!
Be the maverick! Love the maverick!
A world that you keep imagining and discussing can be brought about against the odds. A world that is not cherished and thought about is never going to materialize on its own. The tiny candles of what we already have shine to lighten the burden of responsibility and cheer us on.
Love,
Dare to be b@ld
Dare to be b@ld 