Ideals of Love

I’m kidding… kind of.

The season of love is coming… it can be a very romantic and precious time of year. A time to lavish someone special with sentiments of your affection. It’s a time to get a rush of excitement when you see flowers coming to the office or a letter in the mail.

Unless you’re single. Then it’s a different holiday entirely.

Let’s get a little cynical. Valentine’s Day… a day that reminds you how obviously without another you are. All the days leading up to Valentine’s Day are marked with flowers and boxes of candy and hearts and LOVE. So much love (pre-packaged for your gifting convenience). Every trip to the store is there to remind you, It’s Coming.

And then the day comes. Do you work in an office? Attend school? Go out in public AT ALL? Then you will probably be visually assaulted by every coupled person’s totems of Love, and it will be around every corner.

The last few Valentines were painful due to these sentimentalities. It reminded me of my ideals of love and my lack of that. And Lord knows how I have had my romantic ideals.


I’ve been on a journey the last couple of years. As a former co-dependent individual, it is my relationships by which I defined myself.   I was a daughter to my parents. A sister to my brother. A mother to my children. A friend to my people. But most particularly I have defined myself by my romantic relationships. Ever since I was a girl I had been wrapped up in the idea of Love. Valentine’s Day was just another form of my heroine...my need for the Love Drug.  I wanted...no needed...that person to love me so completely, so I could love them so completely. So we could complete each other. Because I certainly wasn’t complete on my own. This subconscious urge would come to define a series of unhealthy relationships I would get wrapped up in. One after another of bad partnerships that resulted in me feeling even less than, and never more.

Then one day 19-year-old Stacey met “The One” to do that completing she so desperately longed for. 

And an ideal of love was again formed.

For 13 years I was with one person, whom I wrapped my sense of self around. Their interests and moralities and opinions became very intertwined with my own. My needs were linked to theirs. My ideals of what the future would be, consumed with them being a central figurehead in it. In a healthy dynamic it probably could have been a reciprocal and growing relationship that both of us would have benefited from. But we were not healthy people. We were both dealing with our own unresolved traumas. We were both in unhealthy cycles with each other we couldn’t consistently break. We became locked into toxic, abusive patterns that eventually eroded the foundation of our relationship, until there wasn’t anything left to build on. My ideal of love again crumbled.

After that 13 year relationship ended, I was at a loss for how to go forward. The entire first year and a half was spent in utter disarray. Who am I without that other person that use to define me? Who was I, if I wasn’t their partner? 

Honestly, I look back and wonder how I managed to get by like I did. I was a depressed wreck, prone to emotional outbursts and come aparts. I cried in the shower...a lot. I also cried at work...often. And my car. And behind my shed at home.  I wrote 2...yes 2...whole journals full of how horrible it hurt. How much I ached. Why it was so wrong and unfair and not part of the plan. I remember screaming at God in my living room, “I’M TIRED LORD!!” over and over and over. I was angry at Him. Angry at me. Angry at life being so vastly different from the one I had planned...a happy family, being a happy wife, living a happy life.

It wasn’t fair.

This painting was a “one and done” during one such emotional come apart. It was right before Valentine’s Day, 2019. I felt more alone than I ever had. The kids were gone to other households. My friends, all coupled up, were out celebrating the weekend with their partners. I sat at home, determined to wallow in this misery that was mine. It seemed the only way to be at the time.

But that night marked the first of my healing. A series of HeArtwork paintings would come to define my pain, helping me process it out a brush stroke at a time. I worked until the late hours of the night--- exhausted mentally, emotionally, physically, but almost possessed by something beyond myself to push on. I finished the painting all in one night. That’s a rarity. I seldom believe a painting is ever really done, only to a good stopping point. Once I completed this one though, I knew it was done. I had captured a feeling within my soul and translated it out onto canvas. Seeing this physical representation brought me a peace I hadn’t felt in quite awhile. And it inspired a series of other heart paintings that would roll out the next year as I continued to mourn my loss of what was, and learned to embrace what is.

Over the next 2 years I began the process of becoming my own. No longer defining myself by my need to be validated by my other. Not needing to feel completion with another person, but knowing completion within my own self. I began to dissect what was me and what was something outside of me I had picked up along the long road of life. I let go, piece by piece, that which no longer served. I continued to journal my journey. To paint my pain. I tried on new hats. New clothes. New hair styles. What fit? What didn’t?  I started going to therapy regularly--- forming a connected relationship with my therapist for the first time ever. I prayed to God for His guidance. I thanked Him for the many blessings He put in my path, even though I didn’t deserve them. I began to consistently reflect on my abundance instead of my lack.

Everything became more intentional. More focused. And piece by piece, I found my peace.

Because I was tired, Lord. I was tired of feeling stuck in my mourning and bitterness and loss. All of my ideals of love had failed me. I wanted to grow beyond the thinking that had kept me choosing broken paths.

And as I look back, I can see how this painting represents that growth. This is my third solo Valentine’s Day. But Valentine’s Day feels entirely different this year. I do not mourn for what I have lost. I celebrate what I have. I no longer look for a relationship to complete me. Each piece of HeArtwork I created over the last 2 years revealed some new part of myself that I needed to appreciate. Each insight brought me deeper understanding of myself and who I was outside of what use to define me. This has made the relationships I do have much healthier.

Though none of the relationships are currently romantic, they are all reciprocal. They value my contribution to their lives. I value their contribution to mine. None of us need the other to feel complete, but our lives are enriched by each other in ways that matter. In ways that keep us connected in healthy, constructive affinity.  We communicate openly our needs and concerns. Now that I have found my voice I can more clearly express those sentiments to the people I care about. And it has made all the difference. I know that when I do find someone I want to share myself with, I have the tools I need for it to be done the right way. Not seeded in idealisms that depend on dependency… but instead rooted in knowing our value, appreciating each other and our contributions.

Co-Dependency depends on you not knowing your own worth. It depends on you placing that value in another person’s hands. I have recognized what taking that power back feels like. What owning my good, bad and ugly feels like. What being in the presence of others who value themselves, and take accountability (good,bad and ugly), feels like. Those relationships are a solid foundation to begin the process of building something more. While my patterns and cycles are still present, lurking in dark corners and waiting for their moment to re-emerge, I now have better tools for dealing with their presence. I may never be fully healed of these tendencies, but I am better prepared.

I’m better prepared to love another...because I am better able to love myself.