February, and Contentment, and Dust, oh my

On Valentine's Day and Lent, and the search for something that will last

Isn’t it weird how one commercialized holiday - the last in a whole difficult string of them - can overwhelm the thoughts and conversations of so many?

I’ve seen a variety of approaches to Valentine’s Day in my social media circles over the years. From singles who hate the idea and feel the intensity of what they don’t have, to those who choose to celebrate their friends with joy and affection, to those who express their wish for love this year (or even make the bold move to make feelings known). And I see partnered people seeming to feel the same range of emotions about the day: calling it “just another day,” or sharing pictures of sweet cards or gifts or from dinner, or show honest pain that this day, even in their partnered state, is not what they hoped it would be.

Then there are those who go out of their way (and lane) to tell people how they should be feeling on a (made up, remember?) holiday. And there are always the click- and view-garnering posts telling people, particularly those who are solo, to be content in their still waiting season.

I’ve been on both sides: as a partnered person who received overwhelming displays of affection, which disappeared after a few years and a couple of children. Not by mutual agreement due to the taxing time of life, but because he no longer valued me as his spouse, only tolerated me as a co-parent. I vividly remember a Valentine’s Day we spent as a family (including my mother) at a local buffet restaurant. He hadn’t remembered the day until he saw the paper hearts decorating the table.

I’ve been the partnered person who chose to say, “It’s just another day” to hide my disappointment in the way the day was marked. I wanted to be someone's first thought. But the nature of my marriage didn’t allow for complaining, or communicating, really. So I chose cynicism which killed my former joy for this day for years.

And now I’m a solo person accustomed to bypassing my true feelings. I say things don’t bother me, when they really do. I’ve been single for 11 years. Of course I’ve had moments when I want a change to that status - there have been a couple of times when I seemed to have a reason to hope for that change. And when ultimately my circumstances remained the same, I was prepared to pretend (once again) that my wants weren’t really my wants. Because somewhere I got the idea that having unmet desires meant I was not content with my life. And that if I wasn’t patiently waiting (patient being defined as demure and never complaining), I was somehow delaying the “promised” blessing. Prosperity culture is pervasive, y’all.

Waiting is the largest part of life. I’m never NOT waiting on something. And contentment, the way most people view it, is a choice, and I have to say it, a privilege dependent on circumstances. People in the midst of grief are not required to be content on someone else’s timetable. And these unmet desires are a source of grief (see this post from 2023 for more thoughts on that). We have to stop dismissing grief as mere disappointment. And we have to stop treating contentment as something we can achieve through effort or force of will.

A few years ago, my Word Of The Year was supposed to be “contentment.” Shortly after I chose the word and made a cute graphic for Instagram and starting thinking about starting to learn about this idea, my mother suffered a stroke, from which she ultimately passed. My year of “contentment” had turned to one of survival and recovery.

In the rebuilding from this grief, I’ve found a new understanding of contentment. Maybe it’s just that my baseline for “content” has changed. This happens to us, you know, as we live our way through life. What we used to understand as the normal way for life to go necessarily fluctuates in response to the way life actually goes. Someone with chronic pain is going to have a very different definition of “today is a good day” than someone who only encounters occasional headaches or leg cramps after strenuous activity.

I’ve come to see that contentment isn’t passive, it’s about recognizing the reality of what life brings. It’s choosing to remain an active participant to the best of your ability in spite of the circumstances. And it’s realizing that there will be days, weeks, seasons when the best of your ability may not meet someone else’s standard, and that has to be okay.

This year Ash Wednesday falls on Valentine’s Day, or Valentine’s Day occurs on Ash Wednesday, choose how you want to frame it. And in this thought spiral of reminding myself that I’m allowed to want what I want (and so are other people), desires aren’t bad, and contentment is about facing reality… I’m met with another set of thoughts to refelct on: everything that seems important now will one day be dust.

The desire to be just like everyone else remains strong, but the things that we consider so important in this world are not eternal. Relationships end in heartbreak, whether through the breaking of a promise or the ceasing of a heart to beat. All the successes and material things we chase will disappear at the end of all things. And we put a significant portion of our daily energy into building lives that look good to an outside observer. But in the end, how much of it will carry forward to eternity? How much of it will leave an impact, a legacy, on those who remain behind?

I routinely let non-eternal things have priority in my life. I let my thoughts dwell on the maybes and the what-ifs and the “if I had this person in front of me” kinds of potential conversations (or arguments). I grant time and energy to things that won’t matter in a week. I cede precious moments when I could be content to petty quarrels and comparison.

So for Lent I’m giving some of that up. I’m choosing to spend time each day actively living in the present moment, observing creation, feeling my feelings and letting them be what they are, searching Scripture, and holding real relationship building conversations. I’m letting go of the way I think things should be and looking for the way God wants me to be.

And I won’t always get this right, and neither will you, but as my good friend often says, “there’s grace for that.” Thanks be to God