Valentine's Rant

Honestly, I don't hate Valentine's Day.  How can I truly hate anything that is celebrated with glitter and hearts and lace doilies and flowers and bags of sugar filled hearts with cheesy messages on them?  When you think about it that way, hating Valentine's Day would be the same thing as hating myself.  I am like the North Star of glitter.  I think I have a homing device that points all glitter in my direction as its high priestess.  And I totally get that today is about celebrating all kinds of love, and I have had family, friend, and little kid love heaped upon me over my life to the point of it personifying gluttony.  In some ways I am embarrassed to utter anything that could even be conceived as a complaint about this day.

I am saying that to reassure everyone that I don't need to be reminded that I am blessed beyond measure.  I have a God who sent his son to die to show his love for me.  I had two parents and one stepparent who loved me to the ends of the earth.  I have a sister who treats me life a princess and takes care of me more than I deserve.  I have a niece and nephew who are more my brother and sister who I love endlessly, and they love me.  I have friends who I can call at four in the morning, and they would pull themselves out of their warm beds to help me do whatever it was I needed, and let me not even get started on the teenagers and children who think I am the coolest thing since the smartphone, and the adoration is mutual.  I love my young'uns: teenagers and little kids.  They bring me more joy than even I can describe.

But let's face it, that isn't what this day is really about is it?  This day is about that one person, your penguin. (Watch Never Been Kissed to get that reference if you don't.) And in that department I am at a deficit.  It used to bother me.  Badly.  A lot of years this day was about wallowing in pity and depression. (Well as much depression as the eternal optimist that I am can suffer from.) I couldn't understand any of it.

I couldn't understand why I have never been the girl who found flowers on her desk or a cheesy-picked-at-the-last-minute-Valentine-card-from-Dollar General. Someone coughthedevilcough would get in my head and tell me I wasn't worthy of this love.  He would tell me there had to be something wrong with me because no one loved me and had never loved me.  And stupid me, you know what I did?  I went and believed it.  I let him get to me.  I let him leave me on the couch in tears, wallowing in misery as I thought of everyone else in the world going out, being in love, exchanging roses and special gifts.  I know in real life it isn't always or hardly ever is that picturesque, but when you're sitting at home wishing for those things that is what you think is going on.  But you know what?  I am not alone in feeling that way.  Many people out there feel the emptiness and loneliness on February 14.

All that being said, today that horrible voice isn't quite as loud.  I am not saying it isn't there, but it isn't screaming.  It is the slightest whisper.  You see I have been growing.  You know how there are things you know are true but you just don't quite really "get it?"  That is the state I have been in most of my life.

I have always known God had a special plan for me.  (He does for all of us.)  However, I have allowed society and the small town world I live in to get in my head and make me feel like (by no one's fault) that because at 38 I'm not married with kids that somehow I have failed as a woman; that I don't belong.  Yes, there are times sitting around the table at Ladies Missionary as they laugh and "complain" about their husbands and their kids that I feel left out.  The headaches they experience, I long for.  I want to be incredibly important to someone, but I also want someone to take for granted.  (Do you know how great that would be to be so certain that someone loves you so unconditionally that you can take them for granted?)

Anyway, back to the point. . . I have learned and fully appreciate now my wait.  Over the past 38 years God has given me so much, and really for the first time ever I am just starting to get it.  I get that my story is different than everyone's around me.  I get that by standing out I have gotten to be a part of so many lives in ways that many don't get to experience.  I have been their when my friends' babies were born.  I get to be cool Ms. Regina or Gigi.  These kids don't love me because I am family.  They love me because they want to.

I get to be a part of my students' lives beyond their hour and half in my room every day.  I don't have to ask or check anyone else's schedule if I want to go to their ballgames or concerts.  Being single with my unique, glorious heart allows me to be the perfect hybrid between grown person and quintessential teenager.  I love they love to follow me on Instagram and want to go shopping with me and talk to me about the mundane goings-on of their lives. I love that they truly listen when I talk to them about life.  They are my children.  They touch my heart.  They drive me insane.  They make me feel important, and what's so great about that is they do that because they want to, not because I'm related or they feel like they have to, but because they want to.

I am finally realizing that by not yet giving me my true heart's desire that God is blessing me in ways that I could never imagine and many others don't have the capacity to understand.  I know I have been sharing His love with them, even more so lately.  And the more I share with them, the more I want to.  I hear Him almost yelling at me, "Regina, this is your talent.  This is your mission.  Show these children My love and My light."

I am now searching exactly how to go about doing that.  It is hard.  I know God has given me the talents and the audience to do so, I am just praying to figure out HOW he wants me to do it.  (More on that later. )

I realize now I am still not ready to be one person's wife or one person's mother.  God made me larger than life to share my light and joy with more than one family.  However, I know He knows that is my true heart's desire.  I know He knows that since I was a little girl that all I have every really wanted was to be someone's wife and someone's mom, so I know He will not forsake that desire. Psalm 37:4 says, "Delight thyself also in the LORD; and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart."  I know that one day, I will get to experience those flowers and last-minute-Valentine-cards-bought-at-Dollar General, and I also know that when God places the love He has planned for me in my path it will be greater than anything I could dream up on my own.

So for now I will continue to revel in my amazing and run-of-the-mill life.  Tonight I will celebrate Valentine's Day with two most fabulous 14 year old girls who are also after God's heart.  Even if God never grants me my own child, I know my love for Him will carry on because He and these young ladies' parents have allowed me to spend time with them and be a part of their lives.  It is going to be a great Valentine's Day, and one day, hopefully, I will be so annoyed with some "stupid man" that I will long for the times I could pack up two teenager girls in my car and head to Florence to paint and shop without any other responsibilities.  In fact, I am so sure that scene is WHY I am waiting. I will face this Single's Awareness Day with hope and joy because while it may not be the type of love Valentine's Day is known for, my heart is overflowing with joy and love that will never go away.