Today is the only day we have to love 2


This is the only February 14th  I have.  I have to do the things I want to do this February as much as I can because I do not know if I will be alive next February.  I don’t know if the planet, as I’ve known it, will still exist. I do not know if there will be war in my home country next February, nor do I know if the people I love, including me, will still be here next February.

This has always been true but there were years where I didn’t feel that reality as acutely as I feel it now.  There were groups of years when time was spooling out in front of me like an endless ribbon – a shiny gold ribbon – or so it seemed.

There were years that I didn’t think of time at all.  I didn’t think what if; I didn’t have doubts.  There were years when it felt okay to coast, to wait, and to pontificate about the next step.  No longer.

On this day of this month in this year, I am loving and adoring the man I married.  I am loving my children, grandchildren, mother, sister, brother, aunts, cousins, and friends.  I am lifting friends and neighbors as I can.  I am putting two dollars and loose change in my pocket each day to give to the musician playing in public space or the person who is homeless who catches my eye.  I am praying for and meditating about  a slew of people, in fact the whole world.  (Some by name and some just in general.)

Open yourself up to love and find somebody to love.  So many of my sisters and brothers are disengaged, without partners, and often lonely.  It is difficult to trust in love, especially for those of us who have a stretch of yeas under our belts, but we must show that we are able and willing to love and to receive love.

We don’t know what we are going to face as the things that are familiar to us – the seasons, the ways, the rules, the roles, the places,  terrain to name but a few –change, transition, or cease.  We have got to pull together with love, partnership, compassion, honesty, joy and fun.

This is my Valentine’s message.

 

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About Candelaria Silva

Candelaria Silva-Collins is a marketing, community outreach and programming consultant; writer; and trainer/facilitator who lives in Boston, Massachusetts. She has designed and facilitated workshops on a wide variety of topics including communication, facilitation, job search skills, team building, and parenting issues. She currently coordinates the Community Membership Program of the Huntington Theatre Company. Her work as Director of ACT Roxbury was profiled in several publications, including The Creative Communities Builders Handbook. Candelaria’s children’s stories, short stories, essays and reviews have been published in local and national publications and she is an active blogger. Her publications include the booklets, Handling Rejection; Pushing through Shyness: Networking Tips when You’re Shy, Slow to Warm Up or Just don’t Feel you Belong; and Real Questions about Sex & Relationships for Teens: A Discussion Guide for Parents. She has served on the boards of Goddard College, Wheelock Family Theatre, Boston Foundation for Architecture, and Discover Roxbury. She is currently Chair, Designators of the Henderson Foundation.

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