Well it's Valentine's Day, and as usual I don't want to write about it, and I do.
For while I don't want to be seen to be encouraging that garish orgy of chocolate boxes, sappy sentiment, and heart shaped balloons.
The horror, the horror.
And for me Valentine's Day came early this year...
It is a great excuse to talk about the lonely.
When I was a boy my grandmother read me a story about an old woman whose body was discovered in a rooming house, days or weeks after she died.
And when they went through her possessions they found a diary, with only these same words written on every page:
"Nobody came today."
And although my canny granny was probably just trying to guilt me out for not visiting HER enough i.e. more than four or five times a week.
That story changed forever how I viewed seniors and loneliness.
Well today was Valentine's Day and for the first time in eight years I have nothing to say about it.
Firstly because I said all I wanted to say last year.
And secondly because I don't want to rub my happiness, or another pinky thing, in the faces of the lonely.
Not when there are so many, and loneliness is such a growing crisis.
