i hate valentine's day

And no, it's not because I'm single.

It's because February 14th is the day my Uncle Wesley died. It is also two days before my birthday. "He died on Valentine's Day, two days before my 20th birthday," is the way the memory plays in my head. So there's no way I can forget... which I would like to. The circumstances of his illness and death destroyed my paternal family. And there is a commercialized holiday about love every year to remind me of the death of someone I loved, which is sad enough without layering years of lies and family drama on top.

I was thinking about that today as I was getting my nails done. All the technicians were talking giddily about their plans after work. And all I could think was how I hate this day. And how every year, instead of getting easier, it seems to hit me harder... especially since I turned 35. That was the year I was officially a year older than Uncle Wes ever got to be. And every year is another...

Then something freaky happened. Bryan Adams' "Everything I Do (I Do It For You)" came over the sound system.

They say signs are all around us... you just have to listen. And it was everything I could do to not start bawling in the middle of the nail salon when I heard that. Some might call it random coincidence, as it's a love song, playing on Valentine's Day. But that is a song from the one CD I took from Uncle Wes' music collection after he died.

Was that his way of saying he's still around? Is he looking out for me? Was he purposely distracting me from my growing desire to smack the giddy nail girls so I wouldn't end up in jail on my birthday weekend?

I don't know. And I probably never will ... at least in this lifetime. But I did immediately start composing sentences about "signs" in my head as I sat there, which morphed into the beginning of this as I drove, and I couldn't get home fast enough to write it down. I haven't written in a few weeks. I wrote a lot when I found out he was sick, and on the day he died I wrote a poem called "Peace" that just kind of came to me.

Maybe, as I'm thinking and typing now, that was his message. As I am again finding myself at a career crossroads, and at the start of the weekend each year when I am usually at my most introspective, maybe that was his way of telling me what I should do... and that I should do it for me.

Or maybe I'm just really tired and losing my mind.

Either way, I feel better now. Tired, but better.