Love-ly.

Dear Oprah-

I can’t remember the last time I watched your show, but it made me cry and then I was depressed.  At that moment, I realized your true genius—you make people think about things that make them sad so that those same people have to tune in the next day so you can tell them how to overcome their sadness.  I’ve got your number, Oprah.  I’m on to you.  And anyway, I have absolutely no interest in all that that you-are-loved and love-is-freeing rhetoric.  Especially not when it comes from a stranger on cable TV.

Nevertheless, I thought of you on Tuesday, February 12, 2013: Valentine’s Day (observed).  Sam treated me to a lovely dinner and we watched the State of the Union Address together. As the evening wound down, Sam leaned over and told me that he liked me.  I told him that I liked him too and that it was a lovely Valentine’s Day (observed).  He smiled and then he said something game-changing:

“Maybe because its Valentine’s Day (observed) and maybe I’m feeling overly-sentimental, but there’s another L-word rolling around in my head right now.”

To be clear, if Sam had told me he loved me, I might have excused myself to go to the bathroom and then climbed out through the vent for the exhaust fan and run home barefoot.  In my experience, love is a time bomb that could break your heart into a million tiny pieces at any moment.   And since I haven’t found a bomb squad that can help me disengage before the bomb detonates, I generally avoid love like the plague. Or the norovirus. 

But Sam didn’t tell me he loved me.  (Thank Gawd.)  By stating there was an L-word bouncing around in his head, Sam simply suggested that he was capable of being in love with me.  And if someone is capable of being in love with me . . . that means I must be loveable. 

It was a revolutionary thought, and one that I hadn’t properly considered before.  (After all, I was very, very busy not getting attached and not letting anyone get attached to me.)  So, while I may have seen myself as smart(ish) and fun and sometimes funny, I’ve never really identified myself as falling-in-love or being-loved material.  Now Oprah, I will acknowledge that you’ve been telling me I was worthy of love for my whole entire life.  But you say that to everyone—it’s like, your job.  And anyway, you don’t really know me.

The point is that now someone who does know me has declared me loveable, and I’ve decided he’s right.  But Oprah, you were right too.  Feeling loveable is outrageously liberating.  It means I can stop fretting about The End.  It means I can quit making lists of reasons not to get attached.  It means I can stop planning escape routes.  It means I can stop trying to convince others that I’m All Wrong.  It means that I can enjoy the butterflies and fairy dust and laugh-out-loud moments of getting to know someone.  It means I can embrace the uncertainty of relationships because I trust that I’m still a loveable person.

In that sense, it was the best ever Valentine’s Day (observed) gift. I don’t know if things with Sam will work out or not.   Fortunately, feeling loveable is a little gem of awareness I’ll take with me no matter how the relationship ends.  But if it ends badly, Oprah, and I need any help overcoming sadness or disappointment, I promise I’ll tune in--I’ve got your channel.

Sincerely,

SEE