This I Shamelessly Tell You

Why I Still Hate Valentine's Day, or How I Found, Then Lost My Soul Mate to the War

by Rajkhet Dirzhud-Rashid - February 2009
photo by Guitar Doug - Model: Abbey Rhode

It's that time of year again. Although I can't avert my eyes or avoid my local drug store (have to have my meds to keep from acting on my darker tendencies regarding death), I wish I could. That way all of those neon red boxes and oozing, sentimental cards wouldn't be virtually attacking my hurting heart and wounded spirit. I hate Valentine's Day or at least the hearts and flowers and someone taking you out to dinner part. Possibly because this year, the person of my dreams, my soul mate has bailed, gone AWOL from my life, disappeared as if aliens took him into another nebula.

To really understand my angst, you have to know where and how it started. When we met at The Wet Spot two years ago, I knew he was a soldier. I knew he'd already been over to 'the sandbox' (the sarcastic term another soldier I Internet dated while he was in Iraq called the war arena) and had seen and done things I didn't really want to know about. That didn't stop me from wanting to nail him on the spot. With the help of a lady friend, I did just that and saw stars. The earth moved and after a couple of weeks of talking our phones to death (I had a battery operated phone at the time, him a cell), rumpling another set of sheets at The Wet Spot, I invited him over to my place. Things got even better. I fell head over heels for this soldier from a red state, and we fit like some higher power had made us for each other, even unable to stop touching our bodies together while we slept. Actually I tried to sleep, but couldn't, because having him next to me without having sex was almost intolerable. Then he had a nightmare, one that I knew was part of his PTSD from being 'over there' the first time, and we talked, and we drifted apart, and then he went over a second time. I cried buckets, waited, prayed, and right before Christmas last year, I turned around and there he was, older, a little more edgy. I almost didn't know him. But the heart wants what the heart wants, to paraphrase another writer, so we played (being at The Wet Spot, again), and went back to my place for some horizontal tango.

But he was and is different, so when the worst snow storm in recent memory hit and collided with Christmas Eve and my plans to spend the holidays with him, I fell apart (probably all of that sloshing through the snow and having cold feet for a week). I shared my feelings that I thought he was being mean to me, and asked what I was to him.

Bad idea. I knew it then, but did it anyway. And after he stopped talking to me, or texting or anything, I really knew it. But life doesn't give do-overs, so bye bye soul mate, again. So, in spite of memories of actually being taken out a few years ago by a friend/lover, and being given a lovely, red tulip plant by my first ex, I hate Valentine's Day. At least for now, thanks to a war that has come home to ruin the best relationship I've ever had, and one I'd hoped would follow me at least into part of my 'golden years'. Maybe I'll go to The Wet Spot that night, since Valentine's Day is on a Saturday this year, so who knows what might happen. One thing I'm very sure of, I probably won't find my soul mate there again, and I'll miss him beyond this life.

This, I shamelessly tell you.