Tonight, I can write the saddest lines
To be single on Valentine's Day
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example, 'The night is shattered,
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
She loved me, and sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes?
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Excerpt from “Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche”, by Pablo Neruda, translated into English.
I love poetry.
My favorite poet is Pablo Neruda. I have five anthologies of his poetry, including the lost poems that were published thanks to a Kickstarter in 2018. If you know him, it’s almost certainly because of his majestic Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (in Spanish: Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada). Written in 1924, Veinte poemas was controversial at the time for its eroticism and sensuality. To this day, it’s the best selling poetry book in the Spanish language ever.
Neruda was 19 when he wrote it.
The poem I excerpted above is the 20th of the love poems in Veinte poemas - and it’s probably my favorite of Neruda’s poems. I love the heartbreak and desire all suffused throughout. And I love it because I have loved like that, and been loved just as desperately in return.
And today, the day we mark for love, I yearn to be loved like that right now.
I struggled writing this email. I was scared to write it, and scared to send it. I’m scared you’ll read it, and think less of me, or badly of me. But one reason I started writing these emails was because I wanted to be honest, radically honest, and open, and vulnerable, come what may.
Being genuine, sincere, and unguarded means you’ll be scared at times; so it is now. And so I plunge. So, first: I am a confirmed romantic. Not so much in the hackneyed terms that surround “romance” and “Valentine’s Day” and all that; far more in believing in the idea of love. Of expressing love, of embracing love, and living a life in love.
I’ll start with the Greeks. You’re definitely familiar with éros - love for a person, mostly in the sexual or passionate sense, but that’s just scratching the surface. Through contemplation, it becomes an appreciation of the beauty within that person, or even becomes appreciation of beauty itself. There’s philia: what we would regard as friendship; a self-possessed, virtuous love. Related to this is philautia, which is love for one’s self, and in its best form is understood as being compassionate with yourself.
Most folks don’t know about storgē, which is how the Greeks understood the love you might feel towards your parents or children, or even your local sports team. And finally, there’s agápe: selfless love, what we would call unconditional love. It’s the expression of love you see mentioned in the Christian Gospels, particularly in 1 Corinthians 13, especially the fourth verse:
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
When I was a kid, I would read that passage, over and over. My stepfather was fond of reciting it, even as he failed abysmally at living it. He’d hit me when I crossed him, and tell me that he loved me, and those words would tumble in my brain, all around. I would go to my room, choking down tears, and wonder if I’d ever know a time when I’d know a love that was patient and kind.
I would; but that time has gone, and I don’t know if it will return.
Despite being a romantic, I dislike Valentine’s Day. I just can’t much abide a “holiday” that lets people use grand gestures and buying ephemeral things as a substitute for actually loving someone, or as a hall pass for behaving absently at best, and outrageously at worst, for the remainder of the year. Love deserves so much more than that.
I kicked off with the Greeks and the New Testament because I wanted some grounding for what I’m going to say. Which is this: my politics and morals hold love as an active force at its center. Love is a force for liberation; when we express it and experience it, it compels us to be the best version of ourselves we can be. It compels us to be honest with ourselves, and each other; to compassion for ourselves, and each other. To empathy, and justice, and the positive peace that comes with the presence of justice. It is astonishingly demanding.
And yet: I find myself this Valentine’s Day longing to be loved.
After the end of my last relationship, mourning the depth of what I’d lost and broken, I wrote so many words, but they all had love at its midst. And it was then that I realized what love meant to me. It meant truly looking at myself, and demanding so much more, and yet accepting that I am deserving of it, as horribly flawed as I am.
I know I’m loved today; I’m extraordinarily fortunate for the friends I have, and I’m working hard on being compassionate with myself. While my relationship with my parents is shattered, I still feel love for my mother, I love my sister, and my love for the Mets endures.
But I am not loved, nor do I love someone. I want to once more fall in love. It hurts so much that it’s not happening. It hurts, it exhausts me, and I don’t know how to fix it. I’m not saying I’m entitled to have someone love me. I’m saying that I would like it, and I find the absence of that in my life extremely painful. And I’m sharing that with you because it pains me too much to keep it veiled any longer.
It’s early November.
I felt like I was ready to date someone, or at least meet someone. So many people I knew were finding love, and so I asked myself, Why not me? I wanted to be serious about it. I was…fine being single, but I missed being with someone. I missed talking with someone; I missed someone knowing my foibles, and loving me for them, not despite them. I missed being close with someone, and holding their hand. I missed so many more things than this; and I wanted to experience them again.
The last time I was single, no one used apps to find romantic partners; now, it’s all we use. I tried them all, and quickly realized that most of them were useless for me; the fundamental problem is that they encourage users to think someone “better” is a swipe to the right away.
What makes OKCupid ostensibly better is that it encourages you to tell others about yourself. Not feeling confident, one of my friends helped me, and I’m grateful to her for being so kind and patient. Other friends helped me find photos of myself; one even took a lovely headshot. Finally, I felt ready.
I decided early on that I’d only date people seven years younger than me, and seven years older. It’s arbitrary, but what I was trying to find was the commonality of life experiences. There were two factors that made things harder for me: I’m not interested in having children, and I’d much prefer not to get married - not because I fear commitment (I’ve been married before, and I’ve had long-term relationships), but because I’m not keen on the institution.
It didn’t work out. I deactivated my account last night; I’d signed up for a three-month membership, and I didn’t want to renew it this weekend.
So it goes. But I wasn’t ready for how much it hurt. I’m at a loss, because what I learned is that I simply don’t know how to find a partner. When I deactivated the account, and filled out the survey that all these companies make you fill out at that point, I felt weary and resigned and tired and lonely.
I want to be loved. I want to be desired. I am not. And I wonder if I ever will be. I cried after I finished the OKCupid survey, because it reminded me of so many times I felt the same way, except this time it feels so weirdly conclusive it cuts me to the quick. It was only three months, but it was also three years, and I’d hoped I would’ve met someone by now.
The absence compels my tears; and then I shudder, and I sigh. I am alone; I will be alone; there is nothing I can do. What if three years turns to six, and then nine, and on, and on?
I felt that loneliness viscerally these past few weeks. I’m ill, and there’s nothing more I’d like than for someone to care for me. But there is no one; there’s just me, and there will only be me. I want to be held, but there’s no one there to hold me. I want to be comforted, but there’s no one there to comfort me. I want someone to brush away my tears, but there’s no one; there’s only me.
And I wonder if it will only ever be me.
Regardless: I love every one of you. It’s been a rough week. I’m going to take a step back from writing about politics here, for the same reason I’m stepping away from most social media. I've worked hard to be a kind, compassionate person; lately, when it comes to politics, I feel like I'm angry all the time. That's not how I want to be.
There's lots to be angry about. But the anger that's suffusing so much of American politics, especially on the left, is pointless. It's destructive. So many people I care for have felt its sharp edge, and I am just not okay with that.
There’s a deep sickness in our culture in how people express solidarity with the side they’ve chosen. Many people tend to root for their preferred team or candidate in a nationalistic way (destructive, antagonistic) rather than a patriotic way (productive, positive).
The point being: the only thing that really matters is building a better world. All of the candidates and parties in the world are merely vehicles towards that. They're just part of the movement, they're not the movement in and of itself. And so I find myself back where I started this email, talking about love. The world I want to build is one full of love. Love that fights for peace, rather than settling for the absence of conflict. Love that is just. Love that changes us, so that we can change the world. In short: agápe, and storgē, and philia.
So: I love you. I see you. I’m here for you. If you liked this, please share it?