acasă e doar un cuvânt de găsit în DEX, cuvântul de la pagina 5. sentimentul? una din frumusețile spre care nu mai există hărți, de-ai uitat drumul. unde te uiți când îți e dor de casă?
casă, acasă, loc. ce faci în zilele în care te-ai pierdut de tine, casa te duce întotdeauna spre-năuntru. care cameră a inimii e camera ta?
vocea devine fir roșu, conector, vocea pentru care nu sunt destul niciodată e vocea tuturor bărbaților pe care i-am iubit vreodată, și în primul rând e vocea ta, tată
privirea e un alt fel de atingere, un mod nefiltrat de a spune povești când îți e frică să deschizi buzele, să lași să zboare cuvintele păstrate înăuntru, la căldură, loc comod unde niciodată nu intră nimeni neverificat
ce-o să faci dacă într-o zi am să-ți spun că drumul spre Ea e drumul spre tine scos în afara ta, o punte făcută din tot ce te-a făcut să tremuri, din groază și extaz, plâns și furie, râs și neputință?
o să-ți mai fie casă cineva, te-oi mai uita la ceas când trebuie să pleci sau vei rămâne, captiv de bună voie în casa din carne cu gene mari ce te privește drept în ochi și unde se vorbește o limbă-n care nu se folosesc deloc cuvinte, unde blestemele se adună în zâmbete reci? ce-ți trebuie să stai, ce-mi ceri să pleci?
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.
Lumea Lucretiei 