I can’t tell you how liberating it’s been living in a country that doesn’t celebrate american holidays.

i’m not a scrooge. i do love a themed party, cooking festive foods, buying thoughtful gifts, curating outfits and being with loved ones.

but I also love existing outside the bounds of time-markers that holidays become; the stepping stones that we jump to navigate through the year. i love just existing. one of those time-markers is valentine’s day: a much dreaded stepping stone.

Earlier and earlier the target $3 section screams for you to browse their red and pink kitchen towels and heart shaped hand mirrors. but here in my village in the gambia, there is no cupid. there is no decorating your home to match a season or A holiday. there are no flowers on a dinner table set with candles and salmon alfredo (hand over the heart for alfredo). it’s just not a thing that you do here in the village.

we all know it is a commercial holiday that pressures couples to spend money to show their love. and we also know it is a day that critiques couples into showing their love the rest of the 364 days of the year.

but what makes us feel loved?

for a long time i especially hated valentine’s day. before I met my fiancé I had been single for five years. I loved getting together with girlfriends to celebrate Galentine’s day, but obviously I hated valentine’s day being single.

in my past serious relationship we didn’t celebrate holidays. we had decided to put all the money we would spend on birthday presents, valentine’s day dinners and other special occasions into a savings jar to save for our future (hoorah to being financially responsiblE).

But that 6 year relationship didn’t last.

and i left that relationship with incredibly complicated feelings around what it means to be deserving. now in my current relationship i feel guilty for any good thing done for me.

and with my fiancé, there are infinite good things.

i cried a lot the first 6 months of our relationship. I would burst into tears or the tears would just ooze out. he would be patient and just wait for me to collect myself. he never complained once, which made me cry more. I just wasn’t used to all the goodness.

after only the first few dates he began putting important things about me under the notes section in my contact: what day of the week my therapy appointment was, what restaurants i loved, what my dreams were. after only the first few times we spent the night at each other’s places he took note of all the products i used (shampoo, deodorant, shaver, hairbrush, etc.) and ordered it all on amazon. the next time i stayed over at his place his bathroom had all my essentials in it ready for me. he would randomly drop lunch off to me at work or uber eats me bubble tea when i was stressed. he would get me cookies whenever i was on my cycle religiously, without question. he would plan for cooking nice dinners at home or going to a nice new place to try.

None of this i had to ask for. and None of this he thought was a big deal. but it was a huge deal to me. it was really hard to feel like i deserved it all.

He would drive 30 minutes to my house just to mow my grass, bring me food and take my dog out for me. and my first reaction was “are you sure?”

shortly after we started dating officially, i took in a young teenager (T) who i had been very close to since she was 7 years old going through an emergency housing situation. she ended up staying with me in my house for 9 months and i was her sole caretaker.

date nights and weekend trips with my man quickly shifted to parenting together. things were no longer spicy and fun. i had to wake up at 5am every morning so that i could take her to school downtown. I would pick her up from school on my lunch break and then we would go home after work where i quickly made dinner, did her hair and got her ready for school the next morning. i was too busy for dates and with a child there was really no alone time.

he never signed up for such a dynamic when choosing to date me and he never once complained.

he actually took the best care of us.

as an ED pharmacist, he would work 13 hour night shifts and sometimes drive 30 mins to my house to pick her up to take her to school downtown just so i could get an extra hour of sleep. i would come home to a stocked fridge and dinner bought for us. he took us out to the movies, he took us to eat at restaurants, he attended her play performances, he bought her christmas gifts and he helped me put on her 15th birthday party. when she came down with covid and we had to quarantine, he stocked my house with medicine, food and masks. he even drove four hours in a blizzard to come rescue us when the heat in my house stopped working. we stayed a week at his place where he cooked for us and bought us snacks for movie nights.

the night T moved into my house my fiancé bought dinner and helped me move her in. it was a school night but it was one of the most memorable nights of my life; the three of us laughing at the kitchen table and feeling the gravity of change that was taking place.

that man really showed his love for me: so much so that he showed his love to her as well. i couldn’t have done it without him and his unending support and true partnership.

None of this i had to ask for. and None of this he thought was a big deal. but it was a huge deal to me. it was really hard to feel like i deserved it all.

shortly before T went back to live with her family, i got the news that i got accepted to the peace corps. serving in the peace corps had always been my dream, but i was terrified at the thought of leaving for two years now that my dream man was finally in my life. this beautiful thing we had was too good to risk losing following my dream.

but he didn’t make me choose. He said that “this was the dream you had when i met you, and i want you to follow your dreams. I have enjoyed you since the moment i walked into that coffee shop, and i plan to enjoy you every day until the day i die.”

None of this i had to ask for. and None of this he thought was a big deal. but it was a huge deal to me. it was really hard to feel like i deserved it all.

i had asked earlier, but what makes us feel loved?

for me, through all my complicated feelings struggling to feel deserving of nice things and nice gestures, is a man that keeps loving me through all my complicated feelings struggling to feel deserving. he continues to show up and do kind things that i never have to ask for and keep doing them without any thought of it being a big deal.

and he will always be a big deal to me, because eventually I know that i will finally feel like i deserve it all.

serving here in the gambia and being away from that man has been hard. long distance relationships are hard. but i know that he loves me every single day. and there is no one else i would rather be daydreaming about eating salmon alfredo with than him.

happy valentine’s day.