valentines week & a do-over

It’s Valentines Week!

I know, I know. V-Day gets a bad rap among the cynics. But I’ve always loved it. Since I was, like, eight years old, and boys were not even a thing yet.

Even when I was perpetually single and had essentially built my entire identity on being free as a bird, and ain’t nobody was gonna tie me down.

And now, as Anthony and I are coming down from our seven-year anniversary and celebrating the closing of our first house together, I still frickin’ love Valentine’s Day.

I asked him if we could make a Big Deal out of it this year, so we’re taking a trip out to historic Galena, Illinois for a little holiday getaway! (That’s where we’ll be at the release of this post.)

I’m not declaring my undying love for Valentine’s Day so that all the cynics will change their minds and hop on the roses-and-chocolate train. I’m simply expressing my joy around this particular thing right now because I think it’s an excellent vehicle for a far more important message:

We do not need a reason to Love harder.

I don’t know about you, but I’m, like, a total love bug. Nothing would make me happier than if I could hug the people I adore every single day for five minutes straight, per person. (That might even take longer than 24 hours, but you know, #mathisntreallymything.) I have literally been referred to as a “koala” and a “human furnace” by all my serious boyfriends (yup — both of them). If I could feed the entire world or rescue all the animals, I would.

There are times I have felt overwhelmed by the absolute outpouring of love I have bursting out of my heart — and there have, of course, been more times than I can count where the dark side of loving this hard meets ego and I’ve felt absolutely devastated. (A topic for another time.)

Slowly but surely, though, I’ve learned to sooth my ego and begun to let go of the attachments I have around the “results” I believed I needed in order to Love, and Love epically.

Now, I want to radiate Love wherever I go.

Have you noticed a drastic drop-off of posting on this blog?

Me too.

Rather than give you a list of excuses or reasons why I ghosted on everyone, instead, in a gesture of self-love, I’d like to say that that period of silence was completely necessary. I do apologize for disappointing any of my readers.

Almost for as long as I’ve had this blog, I never really knew what I created it for.

Until now. As of today, this will now simply be a medium for me to radiate Love.

I’m a creative, and I always have been one. It brings me utmost joy to be a maker — but for the longest time I let the shame around being seen for who I really am, the fear of imperfection, block me from that joy. Which brings me to . . .

First and foremost, as cliché as it sounds, I had to become my own Valentine. Then anyone/thing else just became bonus.

I’ve spent so much of my life almost apologizing for the fact that I exist, the fact that I take up space. Who would find value in the things I create, the insights and wisdom I’ve mined from the textures and experiences I’ve lived through? Who could redeem such a perfectly imperfect, wandering soul such as mine?

I mean, this wasn’t just an issue of low self-esteem or a long bout of high school angst. I never identified as particularly emo . . .

I just wanted to be more than I believed I was, and wanted the world to validate me. Craved approval from the outside so that what I was on the inside could feel safe.

Call it #daddyissues, #mommyissues, #minorityproblems, #writersblock, or even blame it on the Patriarchy — any of those infinite scapegoats for a female maker in today’s world to point a finger at to keep her distracted from her inner desires and inner power — and believe me, I’ve blamed each and every one of those things at one point or another.

But they’re not the Truth.

I had to claw my way to the Truth. It took me years, and a whole lot of tears, monetary investment, and toil, to discover my Truth. The Truth that I am ever-changing, I am infinite, and I get to choose at every moment what part of Infinity I want to experience or express as.

Would you say the same about you? I would. I may not know you (yet), but I know you are infinite, too, and that that comes as a beautiful mélange of colors, flavors, and its fair share of despair and danger.

And so, during all this time of coccooning, I’ve noticed that the more fiercely I am able to Love myself and hold space for every facet of me — yes, the koala-bear, generous parts of me, and also the parts of me that throw tantrums or feel the desire to unleash some serious bitch slaps . . . and the parts of me that would rather spend all damn day playing Choices on her iPad rather than lift a finger to do any kind of manual labor — the greater my ability to do the same for others from a place of peace rather than judgment.

Loving myself hard has been a challenge. It’s still near impossible some days in some instances. But as my heart expands and embraces myself more wholly, so does my capacity to love other people from a genuine place.

So allow me to reintroduce myself — and this blog. And this Valentine’s Day, I invite you to Love harder. Love from your Truth. Love from wholeness.

Love, Love, and more Love,

Pamela