Love on display

Time passed, a lot of things happened, and yet, February has arrived again. And, as in any other February, love statements are being shown off everywhere. I mean, if not during the love month, then…when?

My subjective answer to this question is daily. Because, if you love, if you really love somebody, then you love them daily. And you prove your life to them daily, not only a few days a year. That is anything but love, at least in my book.

I write this piece as V-Day’s approaching. The thing is that now, unlike a normal year, it hits different. Like anything else, love and dating have been tested a lot. And, if anything happened, it was a shift in the way we’re looking at our romantic ties.

We feel the need to be loved, appreciated, and held, now maybe more than ever. We need contact with others, physical affection, and emotional support. We’ve seen couples breaking up after years and years, and couples that have only grown stronger from this.

And we see our single friends doing their best to deal with the lack of romance in their lives. This meant going back on dating apps, talking to other people, thinking about how to merge dating and staying safe, working on themselves, or talking with their friends about it.

This also means that all the public display of perfect relationships affects them more than it would on a normal year. It does so because, unlike other years, they’re now finding themselves to be severely limited. They can’t go to singles parties, they can’t go on random dates with people they’ve chatted with for a week, or so, they can only sit there and watch.

And seeing everyone else posting their perfect, sweet, incredible relationship all over Social Media is harming their mental health more than usual. It brings up old feelings of inadequacy, of being unworthy, of being bad. These are some hard to cope with things, especially after a year of pandemic, constraints, anxiety, uncertainty, loss, grief, and burn-out. Because no one has enough mental energy to deal with all these things at once.

What should you keep in mind for this V-Day if you’re one of the single and struggling friends in your group?

No one has it all

I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again: not everything we see on Social Media is real. Most of the time we see just cut-outs of the reality. The highlights of the day, if you want.

This means that all those pretty flowers and cheesy gifts can be an expression of love, but can be as well an expression of fear and anxiety. Keep in mind that a lot of people have turned to buy stuff online as a distraction from their pandemic anxiety. Maybe you’ve done this yourself. There are always two sides to a story, regardless of what the story’s about.

The perfect relationship doesn’t exist in real life

The only place where relationships are perfect, with cute words, gifts,  and appreciation is the Internet. In real life, a relationship has also ups and downs, bad days, heated arguments, and partners asking themselves What was I thinking when I’ve picked you?

And these are the happy, ordinary cases. I am not going to talk about all the abusive, toxic relationships that are living hell in real life and all sugar and pink sequins online. Keep in mind that the number of partners reporting abuses from their significant others has severely increased during the pandemic, so most probably what you see is not what you get.

But none of these things are worth posting online, are they?

You’re not alone in this

This is not the problem of an individual, but of a big part of the population. And it’s okay, this year has wrecked us all, without any kind of discrimination. Our social interactions are being severely diminished, and we play by different rules. Even like that, it’s temporary, and we have to try our best to be patient and, you know, just hang in there.

You are worth it

Having to say this makes my heart sad, but I will do it anyway. You are worth it. Even if you’re single for a long time, or maybe your significant other and you have just split up, you’re worth it. You deserve kindness, respect, attention, care. You deserve to be supported, feeling understood, loved, important. appreciated. You deserve to have around people careful when it comes to your emotional needs, people who won’t belittle you for having a bad period or feeling low. And no one should ever have enough power to make you think otherwise about yourself.

You can still celebrate

Even if you’re single, you can still celebrate love. I mean, self-love is love, after all. So go ahead and treat yourself.

It doesn’t matter if you choose to put on some make-up and nice clothes, take a loong bubble bath, cook something delicious, watch those cheesy movies you’ve always postponed, have a videogames night, or simply sleep in early. It’s your celebration, and you get to do it your way. What matters is reminding yourself that you can be single and still have a lovely time.

Stand your ground

In times like these it can be really tempting to go back to people we share memories with. Maybe our exes, maybe some close friends that proved themselves to be bad for us.Friendly advice: don’t. The reason is the fact that, usually, the mix between nostalgia and loneliness seems to erase the downsides of those relationships. You don’t need to bring back something harmful to your mental health and overall evolution. You know and deserve better. And you will get what you deserve when you’ll stop trying to open closed doors.

These are just a few things we could do to ease our passing through the month of love. Keep in mind that all the good love stories begin with people that have fallen in love with themselves in the first place, and find their way to it. It can be journaling, psychotherapy, Zoom calls with your best friends, whatever you feel might be helpful for you.

Don’t forget that some of the relationships you see might be actually tainted, despite all the pretty moments those involved choose to share. Or that everybody tries to do their best on days of celebration, like Valentine’s Day. And this implies buying pretty gifts, pretty clothes, setting up fancy dinners, and all the special things no one is making daily.

So take a deep breath, and look around. They are human, just like you are. So take advantage of this day and do more of what makes you happy. That will be more than good enough.

#momente

câteodată, acasă e liniștea
care te lasă să fii cum ești.
de cele mai multe ori însă, acasă e
locul unde urechile aud sunete
uneori inexistente, mesaje
subtile din alte lumi, ochii
trag mereu priviri furișe,
așteptând, alături de mâinile încleștate
să se întâmple ceva. orice. așteaptă cuminți
neprevăzutul. răbufnirea.

câteodată, în mine se naște un gol.
gol de dor.
de cele mai multe ori, însă, doar doare.
golul din mine e fundătura
ce nu-mi dă răgaz sau scăpare,
deși încă îmi spun că n-ar mai fi
gol lăsat de-un trecător oarecare.

câteodată îmi aduc aminte de ei.
de toți bărbații vieții mele
și zâmbesc cu duioșie amăruie
peste umăr.
de cele mai multe ori, însă…regret.
regret că au vrut să mă facă
dintr-o femeie, o statuie.

câteodată, gândul meu merge
agale pe drumul lui Ce-ar fi putut fi.
de cele mai multe ori, însă, se-nvârte în cerc,
și derulează aceleași câteva secvențe
masochismul nu e doar al cărnii.

câteodată, mi-e dor ca unghiile mele
să lase urme pe spatele cuiva și să-i placă. să
mă strângă de gât înapoi, să
mă domine cât timp valul mă duce
acolo unde e nevoie de mine să fiu.
de cele mai multe ori, însă, știu
că sexul n-o să cumpere uitarea
pentru mine. va cumpăra în schimb
nemurirea. pentru el.
bărbații despre care scriu nu mor.
își iau
drumul stângaci spre altceva,
spre o altă dată.

câteodată, în timp ce adorm vreau
să mă simt dominată.
dominată de un alt om,
de un om în carne, oase și instincte neîmblânzite.
de cele mai multe ori, însă, închid ochii
știind că e doar un moment pasager,
volatil, nor pe cer.
și adorm. și, temporar, mor.
îmi văd speranța fugărind nostalgii pe tavan.
azi a fost altă zi în care
n-am putut pune emoțiile mele-n palme nimănui
am căutat iar sclipiri în ochii străinului
doar ca să mă pierd în notele parfumului
de noapte de vară cu fân și stele pe cer.
e-un alt an, un alt iulie, iar eu nu mai sper.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…

And as well the most exhausting time of the year. Just think about it, about all the gifts, family dinners, friends’ nights, about all the small talk and the preparations needed in order to make a good figure. Yes, it’s Christmas time…again. And this could be pretty tiresome for some of us.

But Christmas, as any other big celebration, could be as much of a festive time if you’ve had a rough period mentally as it is for the others. You just have to set some limits for yourself and for the others.

I tend to call this eating the dessert first, because just like that, it puts me in a good place, mentally speaking. This, outside the kitchen, means that I begin every festive season with the things that I genuinely like doing.

Treasure-hunting for the prettiest gifts I could think of, decorating the house, helping mom with the cooking. These are the dessert when I speak of household chores.

When it comes to people, however, things tend to get complicated, as I know for a fact that there are people that I can’t really avoid. And, as in every story, they tend to be exactly the nosey relatives I’d give anything to get rid of, at least for a while. 

As I cannot, though, this made me sit a bit longer with myself and analyze the whole context. To see what exactly bothers me when it comes to them, and how much I can be in control of that. Surprisingly, I’ve discovered that they don’t bother me as human beings, as I really love them and I can actually enjoy spending time with them, but the problems tend to appear whenever they begin with their old interrogatory.

I’ve also noticed that the greatest amount of discomfort appears when they try to get to my personal life sphere (maybe because, before being a person who struggles with a pretty rough period, I’m also an introvert). For you the no-no domain might be your professional life, or maybe your health. 

It is important, crucial to identify the domain that you’d prefer to avoid talking about, and especially why you don’t want to. This might be helpful to your growth, as knowing more and more about yourself tends to be.

The second and the public part, however, involves finding your formula. The go-to line, always ready to be served in a talk, when they tend to be uncomfortably nosey. It doesn’t have to be offensive in order to be effective, a simple It just wasn’t my year can make wonders, as it offers an answer and signaling them that you’re not comfortable in sharing details. 

If I’d have to say which is the ‘dessert’ part when it comes to holiday visits, I’d say that it involves catching up first with your dearest ones. We all have that cousin, or that high-school friend that we simply adore, but we are awful at synchronizing with. Well, this is the best time to go and pay them a visit first, or make that phone call we always postpone for whenever we’ll have a bit more free time. 

It could also be someone from the past that we dearly miss and with whom we’d love to catch up again. The Christmas gives us the perfect reason to share a kind thought with them.

But, if you need a bit more help than this, here you have a list with my golden tricks for living the Christmas magic while keeping my mental health as good as possible:

• Do something for yourself daily

Yes, holidays tend to be a break in our usual life rhythm. You can adapt easier to this break if you do something you love for the sake of it daily. It could be sitting in bed with a hot mug beside you and a movie, a good bath, whatever helps you. This also helps recharging after every visit that could’ve been exhausting or annoying. Small acts of kindness  still matter.

• Don’t guilt trip

I don’t know how things are in your community, but here Christmas involves a looot of food. Tasty, fat and hypercalorical food, in insane amounts. And every family has that one member that gets upset if they see that you haven’t finished your plate.

If you’re anything like me, you know how guilty  this makes you feel. You get to feel guilty eitherway, even if you give no damn about how much or what are you eating, or if you choose to say no to auntie’s next course. So just choose what’s best for you, instead of trying to fit everywhere and please everybody.

• Remember your good parts

Holidays tend to be rough, and they often make us feel unworthy, as we tend to compare ourselves to others more than in the rest of the year. To diminish that feeling of unworthiness, it could help you if you keep a gratitude diary, to state daily a good part of being you and a thing that you are really, really grateful about. It always helps me keep it real, as I remember constantly who am I and what I did good so far.

Holiday meetings should never put us into a competition with our loved ones.

• Celebrate your own way

As I was stating above, part of the game is keeping it real to yourself. This means that it’s ok if you get all hyped up by the Christmas spirit since   November, but it’s also ok if you don’t feel moved by all the red-glittery-bright-lights thing. It’s ok if you feel like you should lose contact with some people, even if they are related to them, or if you don’t feel like being the life of any party or visit. It is just as good if you choose to live as in any other day of the year, as if you’d choose to go all-in with the festive thing.

You just have to make your own choices, and this is the most important thing to understand. That having a poor mental health, or maybe just an introverted type of personality shouldn’t make you the try-hard person, who tries to fit in anyone else’s but his own standards and ideas. That is fine to celebrate your own way, and is just as fine if you won’t celebrate at all. 

• Ask for help

Yes, it might be the case. It doesn’t sound pretty, but the holidays bring a huge wave of depression and suicidal thoughts. Ask for help if you feel that your best is not enough to keep you safe. It might be your mom, your best friend, a therapist or maybe someone you deeply and genuinely admire. Don’t hesitate, don’t think that you’ll be ruining their holidays, just reach out. It would hurt them way more to know that they won’t see you smiling anymore because you were too afraid that you could ruin the Christmas dinner if you’ll be honest with them. Please, remember that, even if you might not feel like it, the world is a better place because you’re a part of it.

And if you notice changes in a loved person’s behaviour, be brave enough to talk openly to them. You can never know how much of a difference a hug and some kind words can do in someone’s life.

With this being said, let’s enjoy the Christmas holidays our own way, all while we keep caring for our and our loved ones mental health. Merry Christmas, wherever you’d be, and whatever this would mean for you!