Dear Covid-19, Happy Valentine's Day (2021's Anti-V-Day Playlist)

This year one relationship we’ve all gotten into is one that none of us anticipated - intimacy with pain, sadness, worry, grief - with Covid-19. A year in, now, and none of us are untouched.

So, for all whose closest relationship this year has been with the virus that stole the year away, here is an anti-Valentine's Day playlist for you. Because love is the thing that's found at the bottom of your darkest moments.

including: taylor swift, gloria gaynor, queen, bon iver, leon bridges, p!nk, rihanna, celtic thunder, owl city, and passenger

1. Skinny Love (Birdy, Bon Iver)

for the ones who were hurt by love this year

While there were love stories from this year - mostly in screaming colour on social media - with neighbours falling in love through windowpanes and marriages lasting through lockdowns, if you are here on an anti-Valentine's Day playlist, your story probably isn't one of them. Welcome! Neither was mine. Neither was most people's this year.

Within the first few months of lockdown, anyone I knew - as a 20something with other 20something friends - who had been in a relationship when it began, had gone through a breakup since. Half a year in and we started seeing numbers of rising domestic violence, and we shared a hand-signal for those in danger at home to use over Zoom (please learn it here, it could save a life). Many loves broke this year ... most loves did.

Our lyric: Come on, skinny love, just last the year / Pour a little salt, we were never here

This one is for all who lost love this year, or had to run from it. It may be the kind of love that gets a Hallmark holiday, but it's not the kind of love you are owed, it's too shallow, too weak, too skinny for that. You are worth more. If nothing else, I hope this year has proven that.

2. I Will Survive (Gloria Gaynor)

for the ones who never gave up loving this year

At first I was afraid, I was petrified. Weren't you? When the news reports started coming in, the numbers started rising, and we started moving back home? When the store shelves emptied, summer came and went and weeks turned into months - now a year? When you realized the end might not be anytime soon, and alone might be something you'll be quite a lot?

I'm in my mid-twenties. I wasn't when the pandemic started. Then I'd just turned 24. I was young. I was free. I was hopeful for the future but it wasn't the future yet. Now I'm 25. It's looking like I'll be 26 before the pandemic ends. The future is here. And it's not where I wanted to be. Any of you also starting to do this math? My 27-year-old best friend was told the other day by a molecular biologist not to predict an end to all this until 2023 or 2024. She'll be over 30 by then. She had time before this, now she's worried about finding a partner in time to have kids.

I haven't found a spell or equation or reset button that will give us back these years. But while we lost a lot, we also may have gained something. Gained a year of being in a relationship with ourselves. Gained perspective about our dreams. May have found a way to love dancing on our own.

I'm terrified of dancing with others, but when this song comes on, I begin to dance. I can't help it. And that's where I want you to start. Dance, alone, in your room, while this song plays. Let the opening notes tell your heart how to beat. Let a smile come to your lips when a line makes you fly. Hold yourself and dance, with nobody watching, and celebrate a year spent with yourself. The most important relationship you'll ever have.

Our lyric: as long as I know how to love, I know I'll stay alive / I've got all my life to live, I've got all my love to give

This one is for all of you who didn't just survive this year, but found ways to thrive. You don't need commercialized holiday or expensive chocolates to make it real. You don't need a lover to make it real. However you found ways to love yourself and your life this year, to love the world and others this year, that's your celebration. Because one day is far too small to encompass all the f**king awesome you are.

3. Beam Me Up (P!nk)

for the ones to whom love has been loss this year

The first time I heard this song, I had to turn it off 12 seconds into the lyrics. My anxiety rose up so quickly the tears barely beat it ... and I hadn't faced true loss yet, I only feared it. Two years this song sat on my phone untouched, skipped time and again in fiery seconds of panic, because I knew it would hurt. That's why it's here now, because this year hurt. And it's ok to hurt with it. Because we need to face the pain before we can embrace any of the hope or joy or love. Because this year loving people meant worrying about them. Loving people meant missing them. Loving people meant losing them.

Whoever or whatever you are grieving today, whether it is a parent, a significant other, a friend, a pet, a job, a dream, a plan, a future; whether they (or it) is gone forever, or just gone for now, this song is for you. This Valentine's Day, it's ok that love hurts.

Our lyric: I hear your voice and I, I break in two / and now there's

One of me, with you

4. Sweeter (Leon Bridges, ft. Terrance Martin)

for the ones who had to fight too hard for too little love this year

i understand that i will never understand, but with you i will stand

In the midst of Covid-19 this year an even scarier, more vicious, more destructive pandemic showed up. It didn't emerge, it's been here for some time, but for many it was the first they heard of it. For many more, it was just another day to fight the same battle, the burden heavier every headline.

Valentine's Day is more hollow than usual year, because even in a year where love has held much of our world together, it has also become blindingly clear that it isn't enough. Love isn't enough without action. Without change. And love that serves only as a shield for being 'nice' instead of radical, for being 'civil' instead of accomplice, for being 'peaceful' instead of healing, that's not real love at all. (Resources for action here).

Our lyric: Did the words of the King disappear in the air / Like a butterfly? / Somebody should hand you a felony / Because you stole from me / My chance to be

This one is for anyone who survives in this world every day as a place that actively works to tear them down. May love begin to do the work you've asked for. May those of us in privilege begin to show you the kind of love that would never fit on a Hallmark card. May you be able to hope again, because change makes it justified.

5. Soon You'll Get Better (Taylor Swift, ft. The Chicks)

for the ones too hurt to hope for love this year

In true Taylor Swift fashion (yes, Swiftie here, find my TS Anti-V-Day Playlist here), track 5 had to be a doozy. For those of you not in the know - you need to correct that immediately -, Taylor has a habit of choosing track 5 to be her most emotional, vulnerable, saddest song on any album. We've already had some sad songs, but this one hits a bit differently, at least for me. Because the most painful kind of sadness and fear and pain and worry and grief is the kind that goes hand-in-hand with hope. Because hope makes real the possibility of an end to the pain. And when you are open to possibilities, you are vulnerable to them slamming shut.

However, we owe it to ourselves to hope our way through this time, to dream of a time to come when it's not like this. To dream of a time when we can go outside without a mask. A time when we can hug our friends again. A time when we can once again make lists of where we want to travel. A time when inequality isn't a debate but a memory. A time when security isn't a privilege but a right. A time when our loved ones are safe and our bodies are well and our countries are whole and we have the chance to find love again.

This one is my love song to all of you.

Our lyric: I'll paint the kitchen neon, I'll brighten up the sky / I know I'll never get it, there's not a day that I won't try

Taylor once said she'd never perform this song - a song about her mom's fight with cancer - because it was too hard for her. Too vulnerable. When Covid arrived she offered it to us for a moment of communal catharsis. And possibly, hope. The painful kind, but the kind that nonetheless, opens a window. And I offer it to you for the same reason. May we all soon get better. May there be light at the end of this tunnel. May next year's Valentine's Day be different. May next year be different.

6. Let Her Go (Passenger)

for the ones who had to let go of what they loved this year

This one is for me, but maybe it's for you too. Before Covid I was a Canadian expat living in Glasgow, Scotland. I moved there in 2018 by accident (that story is coming, follow me to updates here and here) and I hadn't ever left. I'd made friends who were more like family. I had a flat in the west end with huge bay windows and, well, mice. But even the mice were beloved because they were a part of an adventure I never thought I'd have, and a part of a life I'd worked hard to build.

And then Justin Trudeau got on TV and told Canadians to come home. Now. And five days later I was on a plane with a scarf over my mouth (masks were sold out back then, do you remember?) and self-isolating for a period that created memories that are all painted dark grey now.

Our lyric: Staring at the bottom of your glass / Hoping one day you'll make a dream last / But dreams come slow and they go so fast

This song is for all the things we lost when the world turned upside down, and as a bonus, it's by a Glaswegian singer with the incomprehensible Glaswegian accent I miss so well. Here's to the ones and things and places we let go this year. Here's to missing them. Here's to loving them, anyways.

7. Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen)

for the ones lost in and out of love this year

Because nothing really matters. There is something so very satisfying about a song that's not trying to make sense, in a year that didn't make any.

I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me. How these words resonate. How the beat resonates in your bones. How the high notes chill your skin. It's seven different songs in one. It's every experience you've had this year in 5 minutes and 59 seconds. It's hate and love and hope and despair. It's everything about love Valentine's Day fails to cover.

Our lyric: I don't want to die / I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all ... / So you think you can stop me and spit in my eye? / So you think you can love me and leave me to die?

This song is for the confusion and chaos of this year. This song is for the never-ending bad-news cycle of this year. This song is for the highs and lows of this year. This song is for the hopelessness of this year as it becomes years. This song is for the lost. Like me. Possibly like you. Because while getting lost can be frightening, sometimes it's the most beautiful thing you can do in this life, this life whose meaning we have yet to find. Valentine's Day is about celebrating love that is found. I defy that. Celebrate love lost, lost love, being lost, and being not yet found. There'll be time for being found, later.

8. Fireflies (Owl City)

for the ones who loved their dreams enough to keep dreaming this year

There is something this year about laying on your bed and staring at the ceiling and just letting yourself dream. Something brave in that. Intimate. This year, in this bedroom where you've probably spent more time than ever before, you dreamed. You found the beautiful moments, no matter how far between.

What song could be more fitting in a year when we've all spent so much time in our bedrooms, alone, staring at the ceiling, than a song that romanticizes it. When nothing in your life is romantic? When romance seems so far away? It's up to you to romanticize it for yourself.

Our lyric: I'd like to make myself believe that planet earth turns slowly / It's hard to say that I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep / Because my dreams are bursting at the seams

This one is for all the ones who allowed themselves to float up off their bedspreads every so often this year and dream. This one is for the ones who saw fireflies this year because if you stare out the window long enough you'll always see one. This one is for the dreamers who kept dreaming even though it isn't their turn for Valentine's Day yet. When it is, promise you won't stop dreaming. Promise the chocolate boxes and heart-shaped cards and Instagram pictures won't be enough to lure you away from loving yourself enough to love your dreams. And if the lover you have one day doesn't love your dreams too, promise even Valentine's won't be enough to tempt you into giving up on the fireflies.

9. The Dutchman (Celtic Thunder)

for the ones who held on to love this year

This one is hard for me. This year, something happened. No, my loved ones didn't get Covid. But my father did get cancer. Terminal. He's still with us, which is my own Valentine's miracle. In fact, he was my Valentine this year and there isn't anything different I would have ever wished for. As I told him, he was the first man I ever loved.

Why am I telling you this? Well, first, you can't complain. You're choosing to read an anti-Valentine's day playlist, you were never promised happy endings. You want those, go watch a Hallmark movie. But I don't think you will. Because right now, no matter how much real life sucks for all of us, escapism feels no better. Have you noticed that too? Somehow, sitting in it, letting the feelings exist, letting the grief and sadness and realness exist makes it feel a little bit better. A little bit more OK. I don't know why, except to say that somehow, I guess, sitting in a hopeless place is where we find love. (Damn, and now I've set myself up, haven't I? Well fine, you've made it this far, you deserve it for your last song. See below.)

Why am I telling you this? Second, because it's where I found love this year, in all the wrong places. In watching my parents go through this. In watching my mother face all the worst facets of my father's personality, coming right to the surface out of fear and pain. Watching her laugh them away, or smooth them over, or walk right through them. Watching them continue to love each other in the face of only the promise of the greatest pain. Seeing her make him his favourite dinner every evening. Hearing him call her name when he first wakes up every morning. Watching her every night as she says goodnight, as all the frustration and resentment and irritation and pain seeps away in the face of not knowing if he'll wake up tomorrow, watching her embrace him gently and tell him she loves him.

Our lyric: Long ago, I used to be a young man / And dear Margaret remembers that for me

This one is to all the great loves. The loves that are ugly. The ones that are imperfect. The ones that have sharp edges and shattered endings and day-in and day-out. The ones that do last forever, till death do them part. This is to all the hardest parts of loving someone, the parts that never make it into a chocolate box or a Hallmark movie or a heart-shaped card. To the kind of love that is never celebrated on Valentine's Day, but on every day one of the 364 days in between.

10. We Found Love (Rihanna)

for the ones who made it all the way through this playlist

thank you

love

~ Audrey

We made it. Through this playlist, but also through this year. And now that I hope you've had a chance to acknowledge some of your emotions, to process, to feel seen and heard and validated (because you are), I just want you to feel free to dance. You never need a lover to be loved. You never need a partner to be worthy. And you never need a Valentine to be happy.

This year we did find love in hopeless places. We may not have found romantic love (or maybe we did). We may not have kept romantic love (or maybe we did). We may not have even been up for romantic love (or maybe we were). No matter what, love in all its other forms was how we made it through this year. And it's the kind of love that's the most anti-Valentine's of all. The kind of love that is far too real to fit on a card, far too dark and dirty and damned good to need chocolates to make it better. It may be love for your family, your passion project, your pet, yourself (it damn well better be yourself). It may be love for a tree outside your bedroom window, or a shade of pink you painted your office wall. It may just be love of your dreams you're brave enough to hold on to for the future. No matter what, you did it. You made it, and this Valentine's day, your hands and heart are full of a love no company can ever buy.

Now go and dance. Because there really is nobody watching. And that's perfectly good, isn't it?

Our lyric: We found love in a hopeless place

For my readers. May your life be filled with love in any shade but red, in any shape but perfect. May music be the rhythm of your survival and the melody of your hope.

Looking for more playlists? Check out my Taylor Swift inspired Anti-V-Day playlist, and more, here.

Thank you so much for reading! Liked this playlist? Please give it a like. Liked my writing? More to come! New stories published here every day. Follow on social media for updates and links.

Instagram: audrey.leda.writes | Twitter: @audreyledawrite