This year I spent Valentine’s Day in Paris - the city of love - on my own.
I’ve never been much of a fan of Valentine’s Day - it’s always felt a little off to me, all that being forced to buy gifts and cards declaring your love for another because Hallmark says so.
I’ve even told former partners not to bother buying me a card or gift on 14th February as it would mean so much more if they did something spontaneous on any other day of the year when they haven’t been prompted or guilted into it.
But this year it hit me differently.
Maybe it was being in Paris.
Maybe it was the weather - relentlessly grey, with the kind of drizzly rain that somehow manages to get up and under your umbrella.
Maybe it was the fact that I’d chosen to listen to a podcast titled: ‘Is Your Inner Child Choosing Your Relationships?’ while I traipsed, cold and bedraggled, around the city streets.
‘Our inner child seeks out partners who remind us of the parent or care-giver who f***ed us up,’ the podcast host cheerily proclaimed as I walked past countless couples gazing adoringly at each other at restaurant tables.
‘They do this because they’re so desperate for the chance to put it right,’ she continued. ‘All our inner child wants is to be healed.’
As I continued walking around Paris on my own I thought of the child inside of me who’d learned early on that the only person I could really, truly rely upon was myself.
If I hadn’t been taught this at such a young age would I too be sitting at one of those tables, gazing adoringly at a partner over a glass of wine and a heart-embossed menu?
Perhaps I wouldn’t have ended my relationship two years ago because I’d felt trapped and craved freedom?
‘Chances are the people who hurt you as a child didn’t mean to,’ the podcast host continued. ‘They were probably doing the best they knew how.’
I toyed with the idea of rocking up at one of those restaurants and ordering the Valentine’s Day menu just for myself.
It’s the kind of thing I’d normally have no qualms about. But this year felt different. I felt different. Vulnerable and a little off-centre.
Valentine’s Day was getting under my skin, like a thorn on one of its cellophane-wrapped roses.
So I about-turned to Five Guys and ordered a very unromantic burger and fries, before heading back to my hotel.
After eating, I sat on the bed and I sat with the pain I was feeling because I knew instinctively that it was something that shouldn’t be ignored or pushed away.
It was a good kind of pain - a growing pain. A sign that maybe just maybe, I’m ready to commit to a serious relationship again.
POST-SCRIPT…
The following day, I woke up to blue skies and sunshine and I set off to the cafe where I’ve been going to write, with a spring in my step.
The loved-up couples were all gone from the restaurants, along with the Valentines menus and heart stickers.
The rush-hour drivers were honking their horns and yelling abuse.
Everything - including me - was back to normal.
I thought of how much I love this city, in spite of how it had messed with my head the day before.
And I thought of that child inside of me, who turned the fact that she felt she couldn’t rely on anyone else into something truly positive - a wonderful experience as a single mum, a 24 year self-employed career, and now a free-spirited life of travel adventures.
On my lunch break I wandered round to the steps of Sacre Coeur with a velvety hot chocolate and a salty, buttery croissant.
A busker was playing on the exact same spot that Hitler once stood at the start of the German occupation of Paris.
People were dancing and singing along. The air shimmered with sunshine and joy.
And then the busker played Imagine by John Lennon.
And as I sat there, eating my lunch on my own in Paris, I felt full to the brim with love.
The kind of love that isn’t sponsored by Hallmark. The kind of love that transcends greetings cards and roses wrapped in cellophane.
The kind of love that’s so powerful it can defeat dictators and write achingly beautiful songs about living together in peace.
Until next week, I hope you feel that love too,
Siobhan
Big thankyou, you sparked a huge ah ha, from a slightly differently angle. Very liberating. I wondered what my 4yr old inner child made of my own Dad dying, as I read your piece. It must really have pissed me off too, but back then I wouldn't have had the words to say so. Perhaps that's where my own writing suddenly splutters to an unexplained full stop: my pen 🖊 probably touches a vulnerability in that tot, that wants to come up out of hiding, but isn't sure how to put it across.
Not many people can say they had "5 Guys" for Valentines 🤣😝
Ok I have a "guilty pleasure" to confess 😅 I get really excited reading the food you've eaten on your travels... I blame it on the fact I don't smoke or drink (well maybe once or twice a year with a friend out of peer pressure) and I'm not crazy sociable so I have a very romantic relationship with food, so on hearing about your Velvety Hot Chocolate and Salty 🥐 i feel rather envious yet eager to have one too 😍
I definitely can't commit to a man, that's not out of promiscuity it's because I've never ever had a man in my life... All girls school, all female family (Dad was literally a man up the road who paid for myself and my sister once a week) my longest relationship was 6 months and my son was from a one night stand (I know, I'm a wrecked woman 🫣) who I couldn't wait to leave because I wanted to go downstairs and eat the left overs from my dinner earlier 🤣 (see, food again!) So I get that "inner child" theory, because I never had a man around I don't really want or need one 🍟
...That or you can't miss what you never had, maybe that will change one day!