Valentine

Valentine’s Day. It’s been the bane of my existence since I was 14. That was the year when it seemed that the box of character cards for the whole class went out the window and in came gifts for “boyfriends” or “girlfriends.” That was the year I realized that things in the world aren’t always fair and some girls get two gifts from the two boys fighting over her and some girls get none. The classic haves and the have nots. I was always one of the have nots in the department. I looked forward to high school when the calendar seemed to (miraculously) fall so that Valentine’s Day was during President’s Weekend break. How else could I have survived year after year of happy couples exchanging flowers and candy in those high school hallways? In college, I continued to be apart of that have nots group. Love, or something like that, always seemed to elude me. I started developing my theory around junior year. It had to be the fact that there were just too many gift giving holidays in a row for any guy to date me. I mean, first came Christmas. Three weeks later, my birthday. Four weeks later, Valentine’s Day. They just couldn’t justify sticking it out until the spring. So I celebrated those infamous fourteenths alone. Watching sappy movies. Shedding a few tears. Attempting to focus on the friends and family that did love me. Still, this nagging remained. But now I know, that you have to be your own valentine. Love yourself first. Treat yourself to something special because you deserve it. Hope that the rest will fall in line exactly how it is supposed to. Smile at the couple you see passing by because that gives you hope that love still exists and can be found. After all, true love isn’t about declaring feelings and emotions on one day, but about giving and sharing every day.