My first Valentine’s Day with Tom was in 1987, back when we were dating. It was a memory I held in secret and pulled out every once in a while, to try to soothe my fears and pain.
 
We were stationed in Korea at the time, and he couldn’t decide what to get me. So he got me one of everything.
Perfume…
A big box of candy…
Flowers….
Jewelry….
A huge, beautiful card…
And a six-foot-tall stuffed polar bear.
 
I was overwhelmed. I had never felt so loved. Imagine being showed with so many gifts so early in a relationship – this was surely a sign of greater showers of affection to come!
 
I held that memory tightly during the moments I watched his steady breathing after he had fallen asleep… moments after screaming filthy names at me

I feel stuck in a revolving door of tiring and consistently selfish thoughts in my mind lately. That’s how I ended my day yesterday; totally focused on two situations in my world and how the situations impacted me. Honestly, when I woke up this morning I found my mind drained of anything positive; just yuck rolling around and around waiting for me to jump on some negative thought and toss it around for a few hours.