If I Could Stand Valentine’s Day
“If I Could Stand Valentine’s Day” is the title of my Pinterest board for Valentine’s Day. If you follow me on Pinterest and were to look at this board you would be confused. Confused because it appears to contain conflicting information. You would have no idea if I liked or hated the holiday. I think it is overall safe to assume that if someone creates a Valentine’s Day themed board on Pinterest that they have some strong opinions about Valentine’s. I imagine if you were indifferent to the day, you really would not waste your time to make a board. From the title, you may be assuming that I cannot stand Valentine’s Day…but you could also infer that I may also hold a level of affinity for the “holiday”. To be clear, I think “holiday” is a generous title for Valentine’s Day. A day that makes most people illicit feelings of panic, dread, excitement, and uneasiness…well, I guess a lot of holidays do that actually, but still I would not go so far as to call it a holiday. For the sake of simplicity though, we will just proceed and call it a holiday for the remainder of the blog.
As a professional single person on Valentine’s Day for the last several decades, I have gone through many seasons of how I feel and deal with the holiday. Part of my acidity for Valentine’s is that I have never actually been in a relationship on actual Valentine’s Day (maybe a situationship, but that clearly did not count as a relationship and definitely does not improve my feelings about the day – more on that in a future blog). Thinking back and adding up the Valentine’s Days past it adds up to a lot of Valentine’s that were solo yo. I mean, really – a lot! So grant me some Valentine’s Day reflection slack as I proceed with this post. First of all, how is it even possible that I have never been in a relationship on Valentine’s Day?! Seems a little sick and twisted if you ask me. Although some would suggest it has given me a unique perspective. A unique blend of saltiness maybe.
Let us go back to the beginning of my Valentine’s Day past. I think if Dickens were alive today he would write “A Valentine’s Rhyme” because I have had my moments as Scrooge on this day and I know I am not the only one out here either. The soundtrack would include many an angry rhyme, including, but not limited to “I Don’t Fuck With You” by Big Sean. For real though, it has not always been pretty. Some Valentine’s have been rough! I try not to swear too much in my adult life because I was an English major and I do actually have a decent enough vernacular that I can express my discontent in a barrage of phraseologies. Sometimes though you just got sing/scream at the top of your lungs, “I don’t fuck with you, you little stupid ass bitch, I ain’t fuckin’ with YOOOOOOOUUUUU!!!” Which I may have done on a few Valentine’s in the past since the entrance of Big Sean into my sphere of influence. To be clear, I sing/scream the word bitch not aimed toward women. Reclaiming that word as a feminist because the bitches I am referring to on Valentine’s are in fact men. Not all men, very specific, particular, directed men – and each one of you know who you are! I am under good authority that there are actually good men in the world for sure, I have met many, but those are not the ones whom this song is directed and dedicated when I sing it. Although sometimes I was not even mad at any particular dudes, but just the holiday itself and how it would make me feel inadequate as a single person. But I digress, back to the ghosts of Valentine’s past.
As with so many things in life that cause trauma, contempt, and embarrassment, my Valentine’s story begins in grade school. The first couple years of grade school were good, despite a horrible first grade teacher reminiscent of a particular character in Hansel and Gretel who would throw children into the fire. Good in general yes, but good on Valentine’s Day in particular. I really did love Valentine’s Day when I was young. I got sooooo excited when I got to pick out Valentine’s cards to give to all the kids in my class! As an emotional kid, I loved expressing emotions of love and happiness with people. I was fortunate in that I lived in a home where I felt very much loved and just wanted to love everyone all the time. Giving a card to EVERYONE and getting a card from EVERYONE, telling each other how great we all were and how we all cared about each other was awesome! I loved it!!! I would bring a card for everyone, even if I did not know them very well. Sometimes giving valentines to kids I did not know very well made me even happier actually. I do not know if it was my desire to make everyone feel good or if I thought I was helping them in some way? I do not know, only therapy will tell. In those first couple years of grade school, I do not have many bad memories, a couple, but not many. Then third and fourth grade onward hit. Yep. That was the end of my Valentine’s joy and equality. I do not remember exactly what year it happened, just estimating that it was probably third or fourth grade because I know FOR SURE by fifth grade the happiness and excitement of Valentine’s Day had dwindled.
At some point kids started not wanting to give Valentine’s cards to certain kids. It was a rule that you had to give everyone in class a valentine if you were going to give valentines at all, but things got divisive. This would be a great time to say that kids can be the worst! To be fair, humans in general are THE worst, but some of the most hurtful things said to me in my entire life happened between the ages of 8-13. This also would be a good time to say that I love kids: love my sibling’s kids, love my friend’s kids, love kids…but some of them are awful, just awful! So kids in class started “forgetting” certain valentines for certain people and then some people just would not bring valentines so they would get one, but you did not. As an adult, the socioeconomic reality of my childhood leads me to deduce that some kid’s families truly did not have money for Valentine’s cards. As it was, I was very aware that money was a factor in life, as my parents only allowed us to get certain Valentine’s cards due to cost (which I am sure I threw many tantrums about - being the bratty, self-centered, unaware child I was). Which would explain the kids that brought no valentines all together, but not the ones who started “forgetting” Valentine’s Day cards year over year.
At some point, school just stopped doing class valentines due to age, school politics, or past issues – I do not really know what the reasoning was, but it was probably some combination of those factors. The practice of giving valentines to absolutely everyone in your class stopped, but my tender little Valentine’s Day loving heart did not love that idea. I felt that the fun of the holiday was going away, the magic if you will. By the end of grade school, I had all but given up on Valentine’s Day because I was a fat kid who liked boys, but boys did not seem to like her. I also wanted all the friends, but was in the harsh reality stage of life that most people are not actually your friends, especially those only pretend to be your friend on one day a year for Valentine’s Day. #harshlifelessons Maybe middle school would be better I thought…guess how that went.
Well I am going to tell you, so you do not even have to guess! Middle school was rough too! Honestly I think kids were meaner in grade school with their words, but in middle school we all got a lot smarter, more crafty, and manipulative with our social dynamics. Game playing abounded in middle school. Play the game or get slaughtered. As they say, all is fair in love and war. In middle school, love and war are pretty much the same thing. Well…not really love, but definitely like and lust, that is far more accurate for the preteen and teen world, but you get the idea. Middle school was the first time I felt the pangs of watching the girls I thought were the most beautiful and popular get gifts on Valentine’s Day. GIFTS?!?! Can you believe it?! I could not at the time. I could not believe it! Seeing girls that I already envied get balloons, teddy bears, flowers, chocolates, and Claire’s jewelry delivered to their lockers, classrooms, and lunch tables throughout the ENTIRE day on Valentine’s made me sick. Sick with anger, sadness, and feelings of unworthiness. In case I did not already feel like I was not valuable in the world of preteen society, Valentine’s Day would bring an annihilating blow.
At school I did not cry. I stuffed my emotions at school because you could not show your vulnerabilities as they WOULD be used against you. I still, to this day, think I should get an Academy Award for those performances throughout middle school and high school where I would not show emotion and never would cry. When I got home at the end of the Valentine’s school days though, I would go to my room, turn up the music (which was either super sappy or super melancholic to enhance my emotional state), and cry…cry for a long time. I cried a lot as a kid about the lack of romantic interest being directed at me, but especially on Valentine’s Day. From sixth grade through senior year of high school it was the same story - every, single, freakin’ Valentine’s Day. No valentines were received, no balloons, no teddy bears, no flowers, no chocolates, no Claire’s jewelry. It was a dark time for Valentine’s Day. Perhaps now you can see part of the reason Valentine’s Day had turned caustic for my emotional teenage heart.
Since this is already a long story we will fast forward to adulthood since my formative years pretty much were all exactly the same as far as Valentine’s Day went. Never had a boyfriend, never had a secret admirer, and never got any gifts on Valentine’s Day from a boy. You can well see that this girl was not set up very well to handle adulthood Valentine’s Days. I must say, I had learned how to better handle the holiday emotionally after YEARS of an education on feeling inadequate to receive love from anyone who was not related by blood. So I went through adult life learning how to accept myself and love myself for who I was and not for a guy. It was a LOOOOONNNNGGGGG process, still going on today in fact. When I was 19 and decided get healthy and start losing weight that was a huge part of my journey to start learning how to love myself and not be so concerned about how others viewed me. My faith had the biggest part in my growth during that time because I knew that I was loved by God. He made me exactly the way I was at exactly the time I was for a reason. My family loved me, I had real friends that loved me, but God loved me most. I was able to focus on this outrageous amount of love I was receiving instead of focusing the love that Valentine’s Day told me I should have if I was worth anything.
Mind you there were many times I would forget. I would forget that I had real love from family, real love from solid friends, real love that Jesus gave me…I would forget. Often I would forget on Valentine’s Day and would get sad, but I would forget other days too…a lot of other days. In my adult life, I made many poor choices because I was looking for this Valentine’s Day, romantic-comedy type of love that had eluded me and still does. Through a cycle of mistakes, corrections, mistakes, corrections, mistake, mistake, mistake, correction – I have grown. I am still here too! Even though now I have been in relationships and situationships, which is what my teenage-self wanted so badly, I still do not have that one valentine. I have never had any of those individuals on Valentine’s Day. Which, now that it has been so long, I am kind of glad that it has worked out the way it has. I like that I can sit here on Valentine’s Day and reflect back that I did not settle for any of those relationships or situationships because none of them were right, frankly most of them were real wrong. So many women (and men) I know have sacrificed what they deserved for something less in romantic relationships because they felt like they needed that Tiffany diamond engagement and Insta perfect Valentine’s Day post. Tiffany’s, although I love their color blue and appreciate the craftsmanship that goes into their jewelry, is really just our adult, much more expensive version of those Claire’s jewelry gifts girls got in middle school. Not only am I more valuable than Valentine’s Day has lead me to believe at times, I am more valuable than a Tiffany’s engagement ring, and I am definitely more valuable than an Insta post that everyone will double tap and forgot about in a couple days. Seems like a long hard lesson to learn, took me thiry-ish years to get there, but thankful that I have learned that much.
The point, I suppose, for the whole blog is that Valentine’s Day was not just a day for me, it was so much more and continues to be. It was a reminder of who I thought I was not (in relation to men specifically) and what I thought I was lacking. Now I know better who I am, still learning, still growing of course, but getting better. These days I have a lot more affection for Valentine’s Day again because I do not let it define who I am as a person. I remind myself that I have family and friends who love me and care for me all the time! I remember that I do actually have some really good Valentine’s Day memories. I remember that during those years when I was hating Valentine’s Day as a teenager my parents would get me little Valentine’s gifts and my dad would always buy me flowers (to this day he is the only man that has bought me flowers on Valentine’s Day and I love him for it)! I remember that my college roommate’s boyfriend (or whatever they were) bought me thirteen white roses for Valentine’s Day because I told him that she wanted dark blue roses (it is a thing). I remember another roommate’s fiancé bought me a gift card and wrote me an amazing note on how loved I am by God after I had a breakdown about my singleness right before Valentine’s Day. I remember that, after the worst breakup of my life, one of my sweetest friends ever bought me flowers for several years in a row and delivered them anonymously to my job so that I would be reminded that I am loved not only by my friends, but also by Jesus. On Valentine’s Day, I choose to spend it with myself in reflection, not because I have to because I am single, there are a great many other things I could be doing on Valentine’s Day. I choose to be with myself on Valentine’s because I am thankful for the history of Valentine’s past and to where it has brought me in Valentine’s present. I probably would not be the person I am today, for better and for worse, if we did not have Valentine’s Day. If Dickens had written “A Valentine’s Rhyme” I think I would now be at the point in the story where I have seen the ghosts of Valentine’s past, present, and future and have come to the realization that I want to learn and grow from my experiences instead of being stuck in anger and bitterness. Moreover, I want to show everyone that I come across that they are loved too. Valentine’s Day is not so bad after all, I can even kind of stand it now! Being a happy, well adjusted, loving Valentine’s Day Scrooge is pretty great.
Happy Valentine’s Day friends!
Scriptures:
“For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:6-8 (NASB)
“I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.” Romans 8:38-39 (MSG)
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” John 13:34 (NIV)
“Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.” 1 Peter 4:8 (ESV)