Happy Valentine's Day

I have always had this romanticized version of Valentine's Day. Perhaps it is because I watched my dad giving my mom flowers and a card on February 14th every year and giving her a kiss. Or maybe it is from all of the chick flicks I saw growing up or the commercials from the jewelry stores that they aired every year during the Valentine's Day season. No matter how the romanticized version of Valentine's Day came to me, I always saw myself giving a dozen red roses to the one I loved with a card and then taking them out on a romantic candlelit dinner. However, that version has never happened to me.

So, this year, I decided I wanted to know the origins of the holiday and let me tell you that the legends behind the holiday do not leave me with that romanticized version of Valentine's Day. The first two legends about this special day come from the saints Valentine or Valentinas that gave the holiday its name. The first Valentine was said to have been imprisoned and fell in love with a young girl, believed to be the jailer's daughter. Before he died, Valentine sent the young girl one of the first "valentine" cards. He sent a letter to her and signed it "From your Valentine."

The second namesake for the holiday was Valentine who was a priest who served during Emperor Claudius II's reign. It is said that Emperor Claudius II realized that single young men serve more faithfully as soldiers than men with wives and families, so Claudius decreed that young men couldn't get married. However, Valentine realized the injustice of this decree and secretly married the young lovers. When Claudius found out about Valentine marrying the young lovers, he ordered Valentine put to death.

Another legend that brought our beloved holiday about was initially a pagan holiday. The holiday Lupercalia was celebrated in February on the fifteenth. On this day members of the Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would meet at the cave where Romulus and Remus were believed to have been taken care of by the she-wolf. The priests would sacrifice a goat for fertility and a dog for purification.Then the priests would then strip the goat of its hide, in strips, and then dip the strips of hide in the sacrificial blood. They would take to the streets gently slapping women and crops with the strips of hide. The women held no aversion to this because it was believed to make them more fertile for the coming year. Later in the day, the single women would all put their names in an urn and the bachelors would draw names. The name they drew was the woman they would be paired to for the rest of the year and most of those pairs, according to the legend, ended up in marriage. Some people have suggested that the Catholic church placed St. Valentine's Day in the middle of February to "Christianize" the pagan celebration Lupercalia.

I don't know about you, but the blood of a sacrificed goat and dog to make women and crops more fertile and the martyrdom of some men named Valentine has made the holiday a little less romanticized. Don't get me wrong, I still find the idea of expressing my love for a significant other very important and romantic, but the origins of the holiday have made the fact that I am not in a relationship a little less of a slap in the face. I am more able to accept my singleness this year now that I have realized that I am surrounded by people I love and now that I know some of the origins of Valentine's Day.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone.
From your Valentine.

who am i?

it came to me
like it may come to you
a question burning like fire,
    a question that needed an answer.
who am i?

i could have told you long ago
   who I was,
but that was false, a lie.
a lie or two I told myself
   with wrath and hatred behind them
but who i am
   is not much more
than what you see before you.
a man with glasses,
      five foot ten
imperfect in all his actions
working hard to be someone else

until the day i came to realize
that who i am
was something...someone worth being.
i am alive and breathing
              feeling striving being
who i am
is good to be
nothing great about me
but the heart that beats within
beats
      passion caring love
it beats out beats of humanity
and that is something worth having
that is someone worth being.

who am i?

know me
and find out for yourself.

To Love Freely

In a few days, we will be lucky to acknowledge the ones we love by telling them with cards, candy, flowers, or jewelry that we love them. Though, once day a year should never be enough to express for those closest to us we love them. Valentine's Day is indeed a very important day, but perhaps we should allow it to mean more.

Over the past years, I have been among the unlucky few (or many) who don't have a significant other with whom to share Valentine's Day. I saw this holiday as a way for those with someone to rub that fact in the noses of the rest of us who don't have a special someone. In fact, I started to refer to it as Singles Awareness Day or SAD day because you become extremely aware of your single status; Facebook has done nothing to help with that awareness. I began to notice more the couples holding hands, kissing, and showing all forms of affection for each other. I became very embittered and more and more hateful seeing public displays of affection. Love seemed to be a foreign thing I would never know and it hurt. Loneliness is never what anyone wants.

However, this year, though I don't have anyone to call my love, boyfriend, partner, etc., I have a new desire to look at loved ones, though not intimate loved ones, that I can surround myself with as a blessing. I have great friends, family, parents, a grandmother, and many others that I can list among those I love and that love me. I realize how blessed I am to have so much love in my life. I am blessed and I want to acknowledge, this year, that love.

I love and am loved. Who could ask for more? I used to think love was just thrown around without thinking of its true purpose behind its use. But who can judge the intent behind using love so freely? I am not one who can judge. Love should not be contained because I am bitter about not having a significant other to share it with. Love is. Love should not be stifled or hidden. This year, Singles Awareness Day is no more for me; SAD day is not existent. I can't let it be ruinous to the positive energy with which I want to surround myself.

To my friends, I love you. Mom and Dad, eu te amo. To my brothers and sisters, 愛してる . This year, whether you say, "je t'aime;" "eu te amo;" "愛してる;" "ich liebe dich;" "我爱你;" "Ti amo;" "Я вас люблю;" "I love you," or any other variation of the phrase, don't worry about how you say I love you, just say it.

"I shall not live in vain."

Pain. Suffering. They exist as part of the human condition. Buddha said that suffering is created because of attachments we create and have as part of the human experience. We develop attachments to materialistic things, but also, we develop attachments to each other. Because of these attachments, we see each other suffer and we suffer when we see the ones we love in pain. But what about everyone else who suffers? Can we show them sympathy? Can we try to reduce their pain?

There is a love that the Bible talks about that is an unconditional love. That love is charity. In First Corinthians, it states, "Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh not evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth" (1 Corinthians 13:4-8). Charity, if it can be acquired, seems to be the solution to showing sympathy and easing the suffering of others, but that is a lot easier said than done. We, as humans, have a tendency to be selfish beings focused on ourselves and getting what we want. The other thing that keeps us from obtaining charity and having empathy for others, especially for people we don't know, is focusing on our own pains. How can we show empathy and charity for someone we don't know, when our focus remains on ourselves and always looking inward?

We need to stop looking inward and stop being selfish. I know that it is easier to write, but it is a necessity to overcome our need for self-preservation and see every life as just as important as our own. We all have worth. The person sitting next to you in class, on the bus, or on the train is important; they have purpose.

When one of us suffers, we all suffer. We are one and the same. I will make it my goal to end the suffering of others where I can. And to put it in the words of Emily Dickinson, "If I can stop one heart from breaking,/I shall not live in vain;/If I can ease one life the aching,/Or cool one pain,.../I shall not live in vain." I don't want to say, at the close of my life, that I ignored the suffering of others. I want to be able to say I did what I could for other suffering and I didn't live in vain.

Grass is Greener

As I had my days off, I talked with my parents a lot about life and the things with which I struggle. I discovered, in talking to them, that I have yet another disorder. This disorder is not one that only I suffer from. Many people in the world today suffer from this disorder and I still am not even sure if it is recognized by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV), though it should be. I am terming the disorder the "Grass is Greener" disorder.

In everything I do, there is always something wrong with it. I am never just happy with the job I have because there has got to be something better out there, if I could only find it. Where I am living now has so many things wrong with it, so there has got to be somewhere else that is better. The person I am dating is okay, but there has got to be someone more perfect. Anything has got to be better than what I have now. When I am suffering, and sometimes when I am not, there is always this trigger in my head that seems to think that it is time to tell me everything else is better than what I have now.

The Grass is Greener disorder is very persistent. It is very hard to find contentment in anything when your brain is always telling you there has got to be something better. I think one of the major issues with the Grass is Greener disorder is you can never be happy with where you are; the present moment is not considered because the past was so bad that the future has to be better than what it was, even if what you have now is really great. The focus on what you have is never really there. You can't see past what you think the future holds to see what is really there and what is good for you now.

I am trying very hard to break free of this disorder, but it is very hard. I don't know how to focus on the present moment when I have been focusing on the future since I was young. When you are young, you get asked questions about your future like "what do you want to be when you grow up," and other questions; you learn to live in the future mentality and forget the current and beautiful present moment.

However, if we, yes, not just me, can learn to live in the present moment and stop looking to the greener pastures, the Grass is Greener disorder will lose its control over us. We will learn to be content with what we have instead of what we don't have. We will learn that where we are is where we are supposed to be and who we are with is who we are meant to be with at that very moment. I have a mantra that I try to tell myself everyday that I learned from Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist philosopher. The mantra is, "Dwelling in the present moment, I realize this is a wonderful moment." If we can focus on the present moment, life will be wonderful and we will have defeated the Grass is Greener disorder because the grass on which we stand is the most beautiful and the most green.

Is it too much to ask...

"All men are created equal." This is what *you tell the LGBT community, but then you say that a nation under God can't allow two people who love each other to get married because "marriage is only between a man and a woman." "You can't visit a loved one in the hospital;" "your spouse cannot be covered under your insurance;" or you say, "I don't care what you do, just don't flaunt it in my face." You use these sayings and phrases as means to reject the LGBT community, but protect yourselves behind the law to afford yourselves and those you love these rights.

"God loves all his children." "Love the sinner not the sin." "Love thy neighbor as thyself." "Do unto others as you would have done to you." More babel you spout as religious doctrine and ethics, but your children are taught to tolerate the LGBT community. They are taught to tolerate gay people, but not accept and love. They tolerate lesbians by shunning them. They tolerate LGBT people with their bullying. They tolerate gay people when they scream faggot. They tolerate gay men when they tell their friends to stay away cause gay men have AIDS. They tolerate gay teens by keeping them out of Boy Scouts. And they tolerate LGBT people when, in everything they do, they show their hatred for the community.

"You are amazing, but not as you are." You like LGBT people to be the butt of the joke and to fit the stereotypes, but that's all you want. You want LGBT people to change because after all "it's a choice." Right? "You are so good at my hair;" "you make this room pop;" and "everything looks fabulous." But you want that fabulous nature stifled and de-sexed.

You say one thing but want another. You want one thing for yourself, but God forbid it be an equal allocation to all citizens. You ignore the bullying and hide the bullies under the guise of saying "they're just kids." Well, kids grow into adults and you haven't taught them anything. All that is needed is for what you say to match what you do. Is that too much to ask?

*"you" is used, in this entry (except in the quotations), as an over-generalization to indicate the people that have been spouting the rhetoric in the face of the LGBT community for years. If you don't fit into this over-gerneralized category, don't take offense.

Something on My Mind

Life, full of bills, debt, labor, pain, etc., is such a fickle thing. One moment, you're on the the right track, you're working hard on paying off your debts, and then all of the sudden, another medical bill is put in your mail box or your student loans you got a forbearance on is due at the first of the month; you just want to put your head in your hands and cry. People want more money you don't have. You got the student loans to get a degree to make more money, but because of the economy, you're stuck in a dead end job that doesn't give you raises or bonuses; your only bonuses are bleeding ulcers and stress.

Then, when you thought it was safe to go to the doctor for the stress, the bleeding ulcers, or whatever ailment you have, because you've been paying for insurance, you're fooling yourself. You forgot you have to meet the 250 dollar deductible and the 2,500 dollar out-of-pocket expense and Bam! All of the sudden, you owe 1700 dollars for medical expenses out-of-pocket when you only make 10.41 an hour (650 dollars every two weeks), in addition to all of the other bills, like your student loans, car payments, car insurance, cell phone bill, etc. You just can't get ahead.

I find it infuriating that we the people, the ones that make menial wages, keep getting screwed but those Congressmen making six digit salaries or more, can't find a way to forgive debt and blast Pres. Obama's health care initiative because it has holes in it. Well, at least he is trying something; at least he is looking into helping those Americans who can't afford health care. What is your solution?! The Congressmen continue to bicker and backbite, but they can't seem to find the ground that is best, not just for Big Business and the grotesquely wealthy, but also gives help to the peons way down at the bottom in the lower class and the disappearing middle class.

We want solutions, not two-sided banter. If you want to help America, debate is not helping us. Find a solution and find it fast because, we the peons, on whose heads you stand, will not take it much longer. You can only push and pull, a game of tug-o-war, so long before the public will rise up. We are growing weary.

America was once called the sleeping giant. And it is still in slumber, but keep provoking the giant and we will rise up. We will make things change. We are America and we are tired.