Love is a Long Road: Before Cynical and Jaded there was Hope and Joy

People have come to expect a cynical and jaded response from me about a lot of things, but before that there was hope and joy. That's the result of reopening the same wounds. That's the result of believing in people and being hurt by them over and over. Jaded and cynical humor is a defense mechanism for the wounds that ripped hope and joy from my grasp. “Some things are hard to let go. Some things are never enough…. But love is a long, long road” (Tom Petty, Love is a Long Road). My dad died five years ago on Valentine's Day. 

Valentine's Day may as well be a political division in my home. In my grief, I'm the antagonist and want nothing to do with false idols in the shape of chocolate hearts. The other side is just hoping one day I'll get over it. The funny thing for me is that I've never really liked Valentine's Day. There's two that I remember with any degree of fondness, one involved a bouquet of wine (yeah, a case of wine in an arrangement) and the other a platonic date at Whole Foods (most affordable Valentine's Day of my life). 

It's not just that my dad's death is a romance killer. It was a truth teller. I didn't want to keep doing what was expected of me. I didn't want to pretend to enjoy things I rarely did in the first place. I needed to examine the one-way streets in my life. My dad was a huge symbol of all of that and a reason I had to keep up the mask. Not long after he died, I confided in someone that I hate my father and I love him too, which is why it hurts so much. 

My dad voted Republican because my grandmother expected him too. I started out  unaffiliated and leaning Republican because my dad was one. Then I decided to follow my own sense of truth. I stayed in the Church because my family and community expected it. I did a lot of things because my dad expected me to stand by him no matter what and I did. Before the wounds of life, there was genuine joy and hope. It eroded over time. 

When I was in grade school, I used to enjoy jamming out to contemporary Christian Pop and the musical greats of the 20th century. I was the byproduct of a born again hippie junkie. Rock-'n'-roll and praise and worship were always intermingling. It's no surprise that the first place I sang Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah was on stage during a Sunday morning worship service. Spoiler, that song's not about Jesus. I might have discovered its rumored meaning hours before going live (the things I've done for a woman – who am I kidding? I'd do that one again).

Undoing religious shame has taken more work than any struggle I've known. God's been the attribution of my hope, my disdain, and my ambiguity depending on the season. After my dad died, I didn't feel like I needed to keep fighting with that. If God was there I had a lot of questions that weren't being answered. The long road of loving God ran out of pavement. 

The long road of loving and blindly defending my father got really honest. I could love my dad and hate him at the same time because I love that I could talk to my dad about almost anything, I love that he fostered the love of music in my life, I love the combination of peace loving hippie values meets “God is love.” I hate what my dad put people through, what I had to defend, and the ways I was betrayed by him. I hated the selfish addict behavior, not the man who helped give me life. 

Oh, Valentine's Day. For a day that's about flowers, chocolate, and romance all based on commercialized pretense, nothing prepared me for trying to facilitate various Valentine's Day plans without being able to drive. I think I heard somewhere that having a car used to be a trait of a man worth his salt (maybe it still is, I don't know). Do you know how many times I've driven to pick up a date? Zero. My various Valentines over the years had to pick me up instead. 

Sometimes people ask me about the difficulties of not driving. Time and freedom top the list. Trying to do Valentine's Day and romance is right there at the top of the list. Picture this, your date didn't go well. Okay, that stinks, but it happens. Now, imagine having to either ask your date for a ride home or call someone to come get you – awkward! Laughter is an acceptable response. 

Tom Petty was right, love is a long road. Whether that's loving your parents who didn't know how to love themselves, mourning your dad's death on Valentine's Day when your partner was expecting dinner plans or something special, loving a God you couldn't feel anymore, finding love without the romance over ice cream at the supermarket, or years of Valentine's Day rejections because you're not like everyone else. Love is a long road and along the way there was hope, joy, cynicism, and a jaded box of chocolates to remind you that your greatest peace is where unconditional and untraditional meet.