You Can Cherish Someone Without Letting Them Off The Hook

It’s Valentine’s Day- the one day of the year we’ve set aside to intentionally cherish those we love. Putting aside whatever cheery or eye-rolling emotions you might have about the holiday, let’s take a moment to deep dive into what it means to cherish someone- and why expressing your appreciation for their existence in your life does not mean you can’t still be upset about something they’ve done that has not been adequately repaired.

Becoming a developmentally mature adult means you have outgrown the black and white, binary thinking of youth- and you can now hold paradoxes. You can love someone and cherish what you appreciate about them. And you can still be pissed off because they haven’t treated you right. You can list all the qualities you admire and enjoy, right next to all the qualities that royally piss you off, that hurt your feelings, or that cause you to lose respect for someone.

I've done enough end of life care to know that when your time is almost up, nobody regrets not working more or earning more money. Most regrets stem from not enough "I love you's," not enough quality time shared with family and friends, not enough cherishing. Taking people for granted might be the natural consequence of feeling safe and comfortable, and it's great to feel safe and comfortable. But I try not to let myself relax my gratitude so much that I stop cherishing. Because we're all going to lose those we love some day- or they're going to lose us. And while that's scary to consider, the immediacy of that reality- and the uncertainty of when it could happen- is the gateway to unspeakable joy in the flood of cherishing that washes over us whenever we think about what we stand to lose.

So I think loss and cherishing are bedfellows. It's so sad to consider that we might lose someone before we've had a chance to cherish them. But if we can always keep front of mind that we might lose someone who we’re currently upset with unexpectedly, we might prevent regrets later on.

When I think about what prevents us from cherishing our loved ones more than we do, it seems to me that we somehow think we have to hold onto our grudges in order to make sure someone doesn’t get away with treating us badly. It’s as if we think we can’t simultaneously cherish someone without letting them off the hook, as if hearing nice things or receiving a gift or act of service might communicate forgiveness when no real repair has been made and no real remorse has been expressed.

Of course, that makes sense! If we’ve been giving someone the silent treatment or otherwise communicating our distress through the opposite of cherishing behaviors, then someone might think we’ve had a change of heart if we suddenly send them a gushing Valentine. But does it have to be so black and white? Can’t we consider cherishing someone while still holding their feet to the fire in hopes of real repair?

I think back to my housemate April, who had a falling out with her best friend Madeleine when she left New York to move to California. Instead of being excited that April was fulfilling a lifelong dream to relocate to the West Coast, her BFF took it personally and felt abandoned, which caused her to treat April badly. So they parted on bad terms.

Then a couple years later, April called me sobbing. Madeleine had just died in a shocking accident- and April had never had a chance to cherish her. She went on to cherish Madeleine- to me. And I felt so sad that Madeleine probably never knew during those years of chilly distance how much April actually loved her. April swore she would never again withhold cherishing just because she was upset with someone.

That happened right after I had just lost five people I loved in six weeks. All but one of them were quite young and died in shockingly unexpected ways, like getting in an avalanche climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro and being murdered by Egyptian military while legally teaching a meditation retreat at the pyramids and being swept off a hiking trail in Hawaii. What I was so grateful for in my grief is that my last exchange with every single one of those people I lost unexpectedly had been effusively affectionate. Looking back, I had to wonder if some part of them sensed what was about to happen and left me a gift- the memory of those loving last words.

That experience inspired me to write to everyone I was distancing from because of a rift to let them know that, even though I was not done holding a boundary of no contact because of an unforgivable action, that did not mean I hadn’t valued and appreciated the relationship. I wrote the love letters I would want any of those people to have as their last connection with me, should something happen to one of us unexpectedly. Their responses surprisingly led to some repairs I never would have anticipated.

Which brings me back to the value of cherishing. Yes, we need good boundaries. We need to know our limits and hold those boundaries. We need to protect ourselves from abusive people, even if that means ending the relationship. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t appreciate some of the qualities of that person or some of the experiences we had with them. I never want to die with affection unshared, gratitude unspoken, or cherishing withheld because of anger or hurt.

So I’ll leave you with that on this Valentine’s Day. If it feels right and there are people you’ve inadequately cherished, any time is a good day to express cherishing, even if you’re still upset with someone. Because you never know when tomorrow might be your last- or theirs.

On that note, I cherish you all! Thank you for following me over here to Substack, supporting me in all the ways you, and engaging with this community. Happy Valentine’s Day.