Not Even Two Seconds

I love flowers but I don’t want flowers delivered to me. I want to buy the clearance flowers from Kroger and arrange them myself.

I like the beach but I don’t like how hot it is. My favorite part of the beach is watching, feeling, listening to the waves crash. I don’t like sand, not when it’s wet, and I don’t like salt water, except for how it makes my hair look. I like my beaches chilly; I like to wear a sweater and sit curled in a blanket. I’ve never sat curled in a blanket on a beach with someone I love. I’ll bet it’s nice.  

When I go to a fine restaurant where there is good food to be eaten, I eat it. Often, I eat too much of it. I drink too much red wine or bourbon and then I don’t feel sexy or athletic at all. And I don’t like to get down with someone unless I feel sexy and athletic.

I love chocolate, but not when it’s wrapped in a pink, red, white, purple heart-shaped box. I like it to be unwrapped from foil and broken off square by square, handed to me from the other end of the couch by someone who loves me. I especially like it when the squares break in ways they aren’t supposed to. When jagged edges jut out in strange bluffs from the originally intended shape that is molded into the dark, lovely stuff.

I don’t love Valentine’s Day. I spent too many years serving steaks to couples who were pretending. They were pretending to enjoy each other, pretending to care for the other. “Tonight, we’ll get an appetizer and dessert, honey!” They would say. No. I can’t do that. Instead, I want to talk to my partner about our plan for world domination and what our next big move is and what brilliant and crazy idea either of us had that day and how long it will be before we get to go somewhere new together again.

I love love stories. I haven’t always. They felt improbable to me.

The real ones are improbable.

Once you’ve learned the way a real one feels, the fake ones announce themselves. They flicker, they waver like a fluorescent bulb on its way out.

Likewise, once you’ve learned, the real ones become even more incredible, sacred. Even in others, you can see it. You can see if they have a real one or not. And if you see it’s real, your heart feels a little pang of joy for them because you know.

You know if you’ve got a real one, there is no time for pretending.

There is way too much time spent living this wildly grand gift you’ve been given to waste even 2 seconds on the fake bits.

This one is dedicated to my real one, Sam Taylor. My Valentine’s Day to his Morgantown Winter.