The soft melody of the sax plays. That unmistakable sax, the one from "Baker Street," which has always seemed to me the sound of nostalgia: of someone walking alone down a long street, looking for a way out, looking for something.
The corkscrew has done its job. A glass of wine rests beside me as the clock ticks on, and that almost angelic voice begins to sound.
Thus begins my Valentine's Day, alone, in that room.
A priori, it will sound sad: a day where love is everywhere, where couples are happy, boyfriends give each other roses and share laughter as if the whole world were made for two. But the truth is that it is not so. I look at myself in the mirror and I see something beautiful. Something built brick by brick, slowly, with patience. From that new smile under an old and familiar mustache.
For a long time I thought that being alone on a day like this was synonymous with emptiness. But I have learned that it can also be synonymous with encounter. I have finally been teaching myself to love myself, to value myself, to understand that I am as precious as anyone else.
This Valentine's Day I'm not spending it alone. I'm spending it with myself.
And then, with the glass in hand, I think it's time... to toast. And as Kanye West says in his song Runaway:
"So I think it's time to toast.
Let's toast to the idiots.
Let's toast to the imbeciles.
Let's toast to the miserable.
To each one of them that I know.
Let's toast to those who act like complete idiots.
Because, in the end, there is also something of that in us: in our broken versions, in our mistakes, in everything we didn't know how to do well.
But even so… even with everything lived, with everything that hurt, with every fall and every long night… Here I am.
This Valentine's Day I'm not spending it alone:
I'm spending it by my side.
