Some will fall in love with life And drink it from a fountain That is pouring like an avalanche Coming down the mountain

And now it's Valentine's Day. Which, like New Year's, invites you to confront the state of your love life.

Now, I personally quite enjoyed writing my Valentine's post last year, but it's not the kind of thing one can recreate annually. Well, maybe you could, but you'd have to lead a more, uh, adventurous life than mine.

So.

Last night Lexa, who is good people, who is one funny and very real woman, tweeted, "To all my single friends lamenting tomorrow: Don't worry. You'll still be alone Friday, too."

Which is, you know, hilarious. And not. Depending on how you are with yourself.

But such a good reminder that you are who you are and your life is your life, and this is one day.

Although I must admit that previously I could have read it, run with it, and spiraled into a pit of despair. Not only will I be alone tomorrow but also Friday and FOR THE REST OF MY LIIIIIFE.

When I am cold, I cannot begin to imagine what it is like to be sun kissed and warm. I mean, I know that I have been warm before, and that summer will come around again and be blazing hot. I know this with my mind. But not with my skin or my heart or my cold little feet.

I cannot conjure up the feeling of heat.

It is the same way, thankfully, with my life now. I can remember that I used to cry just about every day. I know that I was terrified of never finding love of the stick-around kind, certain of dying alone.

And now I have so much love surrounding me.

Very little of it is of the romantic variety, I will say.

Not that Nick and I don't love each other. But with two young kids, we spend a lot of time on meals and baths and bedtimes and stories and kid adventures. Romance has gotten shoved in a corner, at least for now.

I fretted so much about finding someone and getting married that I didn't actually stop to form expectations of being married.

Which I suppose is good, in that it doesn't meet or not meet expectations. It just is.

One thing that surprised me though, was how much compromise there is. Like endless, daily compromise. And negotiation. It's not that it's always a struggle; it's that you always have to take at least one other person into account.

Pretty sure nobody puts compromise under the "romance" rubric.

Sometimes I get so tired of my life never being about me, always being about us. I think back to my single days, when I actually was having a lot more fun than I sometimes gave myself credit for.

Because now I have so much love surrounding me - but the truth is, I always did. I just didn't see it that way.

Perhaps because I was so busy looking for, well, love. Or something along those lines.

I think back to putting the butter on that guy's nose, and it seems like a lifetime ago, and for that I am thankful.

I'm not suggesting that single people need to get up to as much stupidity as I did, and in retrospect I'd have taken off my clothes in public a lot less and had a lot more sex (not in public).

But what I am saying - or anyway think I am saying - is that it can be difficult to appreciate our lives while we're in them. Maybe those of us who do yoga do that more? I don't know. It seems yogic. I'm the only human I know who has never done yoga.

Anyway.

Things don't necessarily go the way we want them to. We don't have as much control over the world as we would like. Things don't happen on our mental timelines. Sometimes the person you like doesn't like you back. Or does, but is too damaged to do so in a healthy way. Sometimes the right person likes you, and you are too damaged to appreciate them. Sometimes you are married to the right person and you have kids and you're tired and you're not doing a very good job of appreciating all that you have.
Human beings seem to be like this.

Life does not stay one way or the other forever. Although sometimes it feels it does.

Sometimes life is dark, and bad things happen. And sometimes it is rosy, and the world sparkles for you, and you sparkle the world.

And sometimes it's rosy and sparkly and someone poops on your shirt just as you're about to walk out the door.

Here's wishing you more love, more rosey, more sparkles, and less poop.

Happy Valentine's Day, my friends!