My partner and I celebrated Valentine’s Day last weekend. Since he works in healthcare, he got the second dose of the Covid-19 vaccine yesterday and wasn’t sure how he’d be feeling this weekend. And now that we’ve got snow on top of it all, it’s a good thing we celebrated when we did. We went to the Zoo; they limited the number of people allowed into the zoo, and they made sure everyone walked in the same directions and limited indoor proximity. It was an absolute blast, despite being cold and wet, and I left the zoo feeling rejuvenated and more in love than I have ever been with anyone.

I am a hopeless romantic. Have been my whole life. As such, I’ve always seen Valentine’s Day as an opportunity to show the important people in my life how much I love them. I completely understand why some people hate this holiday and choose not to celebrate it. I think that’s very valid. But as someone who has been working to heal from a horrible marriage, I saw this year’s Valentine’s Day as a special opportunity for me to revel in the love I’m blessed to have. When I left my ex, I expected to be in a lot of emotional pain for a long time. I expected to suffer through the distance, the disconnect, and the dismantlement of my marriage. So when I was single on Valentine’s Day in 2020, I felt it was pretty fitting. I spent time with an awesome friend of mine who had also just gone through a divorce, and we had a hell of a night.

But I couldn’t deny how much I missed the intimacy, the closeness, that Valentine’s Day had come to signify. And granted, my ex was always much better at Valentine’s Day, our anniversary, and my birthday than he ever was any other day of the year. We’d have elaborate dates, we’d buy each other lots of gifts, and they made nice distractions from the fact that I felt lonely every other day of the year. But when you go from having a partner to not having one, even though you know their absence is best for you, it still hurts to see just how lonely you are.

As luck would have it, a couple of days after Valentine’s Day last year, I went on my first date with the first man I started falling in love with after my marriage. There was an enormous amount of love bombing and emotional manipulation (men really need to learn that words are not enough; good intentions are not enough; back up what you say with actions, or shut the fuck up and leave us alone) that I chose not to see as red flags because they felt so good. He said all the things I had longed to hear from my ex, and even though I knew his immediate attachment, and the level of said attachment, were bad signs, his words filled parts of me that had been empty for so long, that I couldn’t risk losing it.

Six weeks later, he ended everything and it really fucking hurt.

So now that I’m in a relationship that’s quiet, calm, safe, and more loving than I knew relationships could be, I wanted this Valentine’s Day to be special. And it was. Not because of what I did, but because of who I did it with. I got a stuffed harbor seal and my partner named him David Harbor Seal (which is just perfect; anyone who knows me knows that I love David Harbor and have the hugest crush on him). We had a quiet dinner and started watched the Harley Quinn animated series on HBO Max. (Which is INCREDIBLE, by the way. It is hilarious and brilliantly written and unapologetically feminist. It could be more bisexual, considering Harley and Ivy are an ethically non-monogamous bisexual couple in the comic books, but the show does still show just how much the two women love each other.) And this weekend, we’ll be doing more of the same: eating quiet meals at home and watching t.v.

And that fills me with so much joy, so much excitement, and so much gratitude. My ex made me feel like I was high maintenance, like he had to buy fancy dinners or I would get upset, and I never understood what made him think that. I just wanted to feel loved and accepted by him. I never once demanded that he spend hundreds of dollars on gifts or food. I now know that this is an emotionally abusive tactic. And I know he was wrong. Because my partner’s and my quiet day at the zoo and at home made me so much happier and more fulfilled than any of my ex’s fancy dinners or elaborate gifts. The reason?

My partner shows me how much I matter every single day. He’s not passive aggressive. He doesn’t make me feel like my feelings are irrational or invalid. He spends time with me and does so because he wants to. He laughs with me. He actually wants me to be happy. So this Valentine’s Day, I’m celebrating that. Very few people have ever genuinely loved me without expecting anything in return, and he is one of them. I’m exceedingly grateful this year. Love is, finally, beautiful.