The Church of St. Valentine

Today marks the sixth anniversary of the last time I had anything to do with my farm life.

It always sticks in my head, not because it’s a holiday, but because on this day for the next 2 years I sat in free clinics getting tested for any lingering STD’s that fucker might have given me, thank the gods I came out clean.

Not for lack of trying on his part. You should see some of the women he cheated with.

Ya ya, I know we split the fall before but…and this is pretty gross…

I had traded my place as wife for the mistress.

I left Thanksgiving 2011 but… I cringe to admit, ex hubby and I had been holing up in hotel rooms once a week or so from Remembrance Day to Valentine’s Day.

I lied to borrow the car, I lied to someone I loved so I could disappear into the cold Canadian winter night for some mediocre sex and one last fight. It didn’t feel like a fight, it felt like finally giving up.

February the 14^th 2012 I laid in a beige bed staring at beige walls in a motel in Lindsay Ontario. Couldn’t sleep because his actual wife was blowing up his phone.

I had a moment of clarity on around midnight, he was snoring in one ear and his phone was buzzing in the other ear. “It’s always going to be like this.” Whether I had won the day or not.

That entire relationship was exactly that. Constant skirmishes and when the dust cleared one of us had the high ground, but neither one of us noticed we were in a swamp and nobody wanted that land anyways, high or otherwise.

I was high as a kite for the last 6 months of living there.

It stopped being worth it.

The battle was well lost.

Pat Benetar said ‘love is a battlefield’.

I respectfully disagree.

It shouldn’t be.

Lovers should be sanctuary from the wars that rage all day every day outside.

In your eyes
I see the doorway to a thousand churches
(Peter Gabriel)

Sisterwife tried to sully that song for me way back when. And for a while it worked.

Like everything else that was lost in that 7 years, I just took it back or let it go depending.

Home at last.

I learned something, in the 5 years since, that home is not an address or someone else’s arms, it was something I carried with me all along. Took me a long time to find it as I buried it in the rubble of a bunch of failed relationships.

Been digging myself out for 5 years now.

Setting up the rooms the way I want. Planting my own gardens. Picking my own colors. I make a beautiful bed and the boys who have wandered my halls call me sanctuary and magic. To them I am a lovely place to visit, somewhere safe where they can be themselves and just relax.

I like that.

A cheap beige hotel room can feel like heaven if you are content in your own heart. Or hell if you aren’t.

This isn’t my first Valentine’s Day alone, not sure if it will be my last and I am really not bothered at all.

I have had the lion’s share of romantic movie moments in my life and I know there are more to come.

It is a pretty amazing feeling to know you are complete on your own.

I’ve stitched up all the holes in my soul.

I’ve also hit that point in my life and leveling up that all I really want is Saturday night snugglefucks and Sunday morning pancakes.

But first sweep me off my feet, carry me over the threshold and come home.