I Want to Be a Mushy Peanut

Current Mood Alert: sleepy...sort of. 

My brother came home today with a big box full of little thingies. From his girlfriend, of course. As I learned later, she, in turn, had gone home carrying another box full of more little things, sweets and flowers from him.

Because today it was Saint Valentine's.

Facebook is a great source of social data for persons who enjoy/learn observing how other people interact and react and behave. Like a big lab. As I am one of those annoying persons, I had a lot of intellectual fun today.

Facing Saint Valentine's, subjects start to act in different and characteristic manners.

My brother's kind constitutes the first group. Lovely Doveys. They've been preparing this day for weeks. The perfect gift, the perfect flower, the perfect card with the perfectest love message. Candles, sweets and Iloveyous x1000. It's almost as if they were mini-commercial centres waiting for all this stuff to be out.

There's a second group, the ones who, as my lovely friend Steph put it, think of this day as Singles Awareness Day. Singles around the world with different levels of bitterness about their situation and hatred against the Lovey Doveys, and who feel this day is nothing more than an evil plan of the Universe to remind them how not in love, or rather not-successfully in love, they are. They just broke up with partners, or were left behind, or cheated on. They can't fall in love as much as they try, or maybe they are in love, but must keep it secret; in love with a best friend, with a stranger, with a teacher, with someone else's love. For them, love sucks, and Saint Valentine's is just like a big slap on the their faces. Or their hearts. And in the deepest part of those very same hearts, and as grumpy as they might look, they just desperatedly wished they belonged in the first group. So they hate them even more for it.

Lastly, I think there's a third group, to which I reckon I might belong. The Peanuts. 
 

Years ago, when I was in my teens and therefore fully immersed in the Age of Mush, the sister I never had told me: "You are lovely, but you have the romanticism of a peanut." If memory serves, the trigger was some Valentine's bunch of flowers from her then love of her life, today forgotten of course. Can't remember exactly what my comment was, but I don't think it was along the lines of ''Awwww...you're so lucky, that's sooo romantic!'  as it was expected.

Twenty years later, and an hour ago to be accurate, my brother came to my room with his box. He wanted me to see the whole lot, half sincerely, half waiting to see my face and have a laugh; my lack of enthusiasm -in times of singleness and unsingleness equally- for the day or day-related thing amuses him, apparently.

The truth is, I don't like chocolates except for a couple of exceptions. I don't believe in flowers and I sneeze whenever I'm too close to a buquet. I've never liked romantic poetry, I feel uneasy whenever someone is not natural and spontaneous and instead goes for empty pre-cooked compliments, and I used to have nightmares involving love letters and flowers the eve before Saint Valentine's day in Secondary School.

Love at first sight is a concept so alien to me that once I literally had to coerce a friend of mine, who swore had felt it first hand, into dissectioning it. "You're not romantic enough to understand it," she said. 'How did B. call it? The romanticism of a peanut, wasn't it?' The nerve. Maybe Peanuts are romantic in their own way. 

I don't know every Peanut out there, of course, but I know how amazing some little non-romantic things can be.  

One of the most amazing situations I've been a part of took place on the grass, in a park, eating sunflower seeds, and talking, just talking, for about five hours straight. No sweet talking, no flirting, no references to the beauty of the moon or the dark depths of my eyes. Instead, there was the most interesting conversation going on. We talked about teaching. About grammar and how nobody cares nowadays. About World Wars. About astronomy and how I keep on confusing the same constellations over and over.  About kings and queens, religion and politics. About books. We talked a lot about books.

Of course, we talked about his girldfriend, too. A put off, undoubtedly, but not even that slightly annoying fact managed to ruin the whole experience.

There was this other time when this Peanut had to stay until late working on something and the guest starring of her thoughts skipped important stuff and meet ups to stay with her and help. He never had any interest other than that of a very close friend, and that was ok. It wasn't the first time and wasn't going to be the last one either. Maybe we Peanuts make better friends or intellectual partners than we are girl/boyfriend material. No idea. I'll have to ask.

And one of the most beautiful messages I've ever received was this masterpiece: "It was  a real pleasure to find our last night conversation turning so destructive for my selfsteem. Couldn't sleep and today I'm falling asleep all over my papers, you heartless bitch... Are you and your twisted mind available today?"  We were. Who would have resisted? It's all in the vibes, I've been telling for years.

All in all, fact is that I wouldn't trade my peanut moments for any love letter or heart-shaped ballon, chocolates box or anything. So far, of course.

But, to be completely honest, I think I secretly would like to belong to the Lovey Doveys, if only for one Saint Valentine's. Must be nice, to be excited and nervous and expecting romantic things, and then enjoying the outcome, either good or bad.

Yup. Definitely. I want to be a mushy peanut.

x

PS:

To Lovey Doveys: sometimes you are truly sickening. TRULY.Tone it down in front of Bitter Singles especially, or one day you'll regret it.


To Bitter Singles: chill out people. Lovey Doveys are not the reason you don't have a Valentine. And look at it this way: Valentine's day can always be the day you meet other Bitters to badmouth them. Shared bitterness is FUN.

To Peanuts: PEANUTS RULE. And of course you're not cold and heartless, no matter what the other bunch says. You just have a different sense of romanticism...(And for the record, you are right and NO, love at first sight doesn't exist. Lust at first sight, now that's another entire story...)

90 (a.k.a. A Life Story)

Current mood Alert: respectful

 Once upon a time, there was a young man who went off to fight in an ugly and nasty war; a war that made brothers kill brothers and women were left widows with children for no other reason than no reason. The only surviving child of his parents, they had pleaded  pleaded with him, but it was of no use. He did what every other young man his age wanted to do. 

By the time the terrible war between brothers was over, the prayers of the young man's parents had been heard, or so they thought, because he finally came back, alive, a bitter old man of twenty. For even if he had physically survived, he was far from unharmed. Part of him, the young man he was and should have been still, had died in the trenches. 

Life went on, of course, and the young bitter old man met a woman, married her, and eventually they formed a big family. And even though no one knew, he never stopped having dreams of the war, of the horror...and of the one who had been the best friend of his childhood. 

Because of their different political views, they had found themselves standing on opposite sides of the trenches. The other young man wasn't as lucky, though; he never came back from the front. 

The young bitter old man didn't tell anyone about this one certainty that plagued his dreams. He was sure, as sure as he could be, anyway (because one isn't really conscious of what's going on in the middle of the mayhem) that it had been him the one who killed his best friend. At first it was only a suspicion. A something in the pit of his stomach. Something about their positions. For many years, he tried to recall something, anything, that could make him see he was wrong. Instead, he could clearly replay their positions over and over. And the desperate feeling of shooting or being shot. Eventually, the suspicion turned into  certainty in his mind. If that was or wasn't how it all really happened, his mind didn't care.

One day, many years later, one of the old man's youngest sons died unexpectedly. Shot, at 23, by his very best friend. They were in army training and they were playing with the gun from the new equipments. The friend never thought it could be loaded. 

No one saw the man cry about it. Of course, no one could know that, for him, the tragedy had a deeper meaning. It was the ultimate confirmation of something he had been expecting all his life to be confirmed. To him, his son's tragic death was his rightful retribution, in the form of a most cruelly ironical retake, for what he had done so many years before.

Today, the old man turned ninety. His wife died a few years ago, but he still lives in the same house. His mind is crisp and clear, his body slightly behind. He doesn't like birthdays, especially his, and usually speaks of dues already paid and time off being too long for his tastes and patience.   

As much as I try, I can't even start to imagine half of what he has lived and seen. What it is like to have seen most of your friends go, one by one. Your parents. Your wife. Your son. Your independence. Your old soldier pride (although he doesn't lack on that one, genio y figura...)

I know that anyday he will get his wish and we will get an unwelcomed and sad phone call. But, as he says, he's paid his dues. He's calm and ready, and, if no less bitter, quite the contrary actually, at least more accepting. And so we should.

Even if he's not, I'm happy for him getting this far. 

Happy birthday. 

x