Happy Valentine’s Day to all of you – single, coupled, tripled, whatever. While I know quite a few folks out there are ever-annoyed at the Hallmarked up version of St. Valentine’s, I want to mention a few things as a consistent Valentine’s Day fan, yes, a fan even when I’m single:
It’s NOT a Hallmark marketed Holiday. That’s pretty much Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Sweetest Day. Soon to be followed by National Apology Day (come on, we need one, with all the stuff we do to each other.)
Second, marketers are trying year round to make you feel bad about yourself. Getting extra mad at them for making you feel like you suck because you’re single is just being petty. Being ticked at marketers year round isn’t petty, it’s consistent.
Third, as Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Valentine’s Day is one of the most flexible-in-meaning holidays there is, because most of us haven’t got an inkling who came up with it in the first place. Maybe it’s the day the exterminator finally catches that damn groundhog. Maybe it’s the day before National Chocolate Sale day. It’s definitely the day before rose potpourri making season.
It celebrates LOVE. Love is not, as heavily advertised, only a romantic or familiar proposition. Love is LOVE and even the single are getting some of, if not in ways that they immediately appreciate.
I know a lot of you are down on yourselves today, blaming your body for being single or, for those who share an eating disorder with me, hating yourself after you’ve gone slightly insane with discount chocolate and chalk hearts. So in case no one else says it today, or in the event maybe you’ll believe it on the thousandth repeat, depending on who you are surrounded by:
Your body is NOT an obstacle to a relationship. If you have been rejected because you are fat, then take the time to thank your body for being an excellent idiot filter.
You have every right in the world to set your standards for partners high. Anyone who tells you you “can’t do any better” is staging an elaborate con where only they themselves benefit.
Happiness is a choice you can make; if you act like you’re happy, your body chemistry will do its best to follow. You may still need some medical help to make that happen, and that’s OK, because now you’re participating in healing.
You can be happy with or without a romantic partner. The TV has lied to you a lot – women over 30 have no trouble finding husbands, are not slaves to their biological clock, and are not running out of time. There is no rush, and chances are slim to none that anyone really ends up alone.
We have patches of alone time in our lives to give us time to teach ourselves lessons. Use them. First lesson: learn how to love yourself, and love the flaws that make you who you are.