Gipped by February

I’ll start out this post with a little apology. You see, it’s February. I despise February. This loathing has ripened over the past four or five years simply because I feel gipped. Call me selfish, immature or whatever… shrugging shoulders and I just don’t care… I’m simply being honest…

I don’t remember hating February when I was a kid in school. Perhaps it’s the weather and the drabness of the earth this time of year… I prefer lots of color in the world around me which is one of the reasons why I’ve grown a passion for flower gardens. Makes me long for finding a nice house outside of the city where I can actually plant something again…

When I was married to Steve {my first marriage}, I loved February… He was wonderful about remembering to show me how much he cared for me on Valentine’s Day. He genuinely adored me and I still feel so very guilty for divorcing him. And terribly disappointed in myself that I was so stupidly blinded by Adam at the time…

The first couple of Valentine’s that Ahole and I were together were okay… and by “okay”, I mean they sucked. Life was hard between us and there was always this tension. We moved into a fixer-upper that never got fixed-upped and I got pretty fed-upped with it. I swear to you, we didn’t have running water in the kitchen for almost five years. As a wife, I could have demanded a lot more but I didn’t… And I realized just how badly I had misjudged him. Yeah… feeling a little gipped…

So, I was watching Friends With Money Sunday… dozing on the couch because the girlies were visiting with Daddy. Don’t worry… I’ve seen the movie plenty so taking little naplets didn’t dampen the cinematic experience. My grandfather used to tell me he was watching television through his eyelids. And I believed him.

Near the end of the movie, there is a scene where the couples are leaving a dinner party and conversing in their cars on the way home. It’s a neat dialogue scene and I wish I could find a clip to show you. Two of the husbands, both happily married, tell their wives “You were the most beautiful woman there tonight”. And there it was… that hic in my throat… the one that says “dammit! I got gipped!” THAT’S how it’s supposed to be… and I sat there and cried…

I hate February.

It dawned on me in the car ride home from Maryland tonight that now I have also acquired a fear of February. After all these years of feeling gipped by February, I’ve now added a whole new dimension on the subject. My fear is completely encapsulated into one little thought which is

“What happens when I stop feeling gipped?”

I’m sure you are saying “well, that would be wonderful because it would be the OPPOSITE of gipped”. But… ahhh… this is where it gets fearsome… What if I stop expecting anything at all? What happens when I just unreservedly stop caring? That’s a little painful because I still view myself as a passionate person despite my past romantic failures…

ps: Just wanted to note that it took me a while to decide if gipped was the right term… I wrote out three phrases onto a piece of paper and balled them each up, mixed ‘em around and picked one… Gipped by February won out over An Evil Cupid-ical Curse and Karmic Punishment For My Past Offenses.