I'll Love You Forever

I’ll love you forever. We’ll always be together. You mean everything to me, Happy Valentine’s Day sweetheart. Those words rang out from the depths of my bedroom cupboard from lost voices of high school sweethearts to college boyfriends from 19 years ago. Yes, guilty as charged. I keep a small bag of stale memories from those forgotten days hidden in the depths of my darkest closet. Never too see the light of day. These are my proverbial skeletons. They have traveled with me from place to place like a favorite book you read again and again when times are tough and lonely or you need a good pick me up.

So to write this story I dug into the very back of my biggest closet, emptied every blue covered storage container and finally saw it, a small crumbling unassuming box which held a little plastic bag with a broken zipper. Years ago I placed these sacred mementos into a bag from a set of newly bought sheets. I hoped it would keep them safe from prying eyes. Kept in there are the first eight years of learning about life and love.

Reading them after 13 years made me think of such good and bad memories. Wow so loved so cherished at times. Then so hurt and deserted in others. I love you followed by I’m so sorry for what I did. It’ll never happen again.

This theme would seem to reoccur throughout my younger years over and over again, each time taking a piece of my heart with them and leaving mine an open and seeping wound.

You never think you’ll love again. You never think you’ll find the one that warms your soul. Valentine’s Day has always been one of those days we either dread because we’re alone, enjoy it with others who share our singleness, find a person to fill the void for the day and possibly the night, or have a love to share it with. It doesn’t really matter where you’re at in life every one of us has had a worst Valentine’s experience at some time or another. Sure I got the roses and the cards and the dinners, but what did it all mean?

I can tell you, until you meet the person of your dreams, the one that never hurts you, the one that forever cherishes you, and the one that stays when times are tough, you can never really understand what those cards, flowers and dinners really mean. What love truly means.

So for me every Valentine’s Day before I met my husband was the worst because it never really meant anything until now.