As much as I like to put on the cliche front of ugh Valentine’s Day is the worst just to crack some self-depreciating jokes, I don’t actually mind it anymore. Don’t get me wrong! There have been times when I was so bitter and angry about my love life was that I was so petty and spiteful about anything romantic or lovey dovey. But at this current moment, I am relishing in the moment and the fact that I don’t feel heartbreak at this moment. I feel grateful for the love I have and excited for the things to come.
Truth be told, I feel like I’ve never properly celebrated Valentine’s Day. I never really had a boyfriend on Valentine’s Day (unless you count the one time my freshman year of high school my first ever boyfriend gave me a box of chocolates). But I usually just use all the hype around Valentines Day as an excuse to hang with the girls for Galentine’s Day.
Story time! There was this one time in high school that I wore all black to school on Valentine’s today. You may not know this about me, but I was a geeky, uncool theatre kid high school, and musical theatre was my favorite class. I had all my friends in that class, yet it still didn’t feel like enough because my love life wasn’t where I wanted it to be at the time. So in classic, dramatic Kim fashion, I started stabbing one of the heart shaped donuts my drama teacher brought in with a knife. Because that was going to solve all of my problems. But when my theatre teacher noticed me acting all dramatic, she laughed. And she made me stand up in front of the whole class and dance with her to Michael Buble’s “Haven’t Met You Yet”. That is probably my favorite Valentine’s Day memory I have.
At the time I didn’t even know how true those words in that song were or what a blessing that message is. Because now I’m 23 and I have literally nothing going on romantically in my life at the moment and my friends are getting engaged left and right. And I’m so happy to see them experiencing love and marriage and all of that good stuff, but I’m also super excited for myself to experience that one day in the future because I know it’s going to be way better than any of the mediocre let-downs I’ve experienced in the past. The possibilities are endless for me and that is one of my favorite things about life right now. But I haven’t always felt this way on Valentine’s Day.
It’s easy to feel lonely when you’re not feeling romantic love. Our society really hypes up romantic love as being the end-all-be-all, best thing that can ever happen to you. It’s easy to look around at all the happy couples around you (especially around this time) and feel like you’re missing out or lacking something because you’re not feeling that same kind of romantic love.
But before you throw yourself a pity party or make plans to mope all day on Valentine’s Day, I hope you look around and see the other kinds of love in your life that you’re probably taking for granted. I’m talking about the love you have with your parents and your best friends with God and your dog and so many other people. I’m not saying that you overlook and ignore those relationships and the fact that you love each of them. I just think that Valentine’s day can be spent celebrating all the love you have in your life, and the celebration shouldn’t be reduced to whether or not you have a date that night. The platonic love you have can be just as fulfilling and magical and glorious as romantic love. But you could end up throwing away some of the other types of love you have if you only focus on getting and keeping and wanting romantic love. That’s not what life is all about.
To me it seems really careless to not factor in these feelings of platonic love on a day that is all about love. The word ‘love’ can be really broad and big and mean a lot of things for a lot of different people. It can be taken pretty lightly and be used to describe a book you read and enjoyed or a sweater you saw online. But if you’re feeling alone this Valentine’s Day because you feel you lack romantic love, I hope you remember the other kinds of love you have in your life. Those kinds of love are evident when your dog greets you when you get home or you go to church and really connect with the sermon or you have an amazing night out with your best friends and you can’t stop laughing. Those feelings of love shouldn’t be dismissed on Valentine’s Day.
If we keep wishing and longing for something that we aren’t meant to have right now or keep missing and thinking about something that ended for a reason, we’ll overlook the other types of love in our lives. So on this Valentine’s Day I hope you take a look around you and let those you love know you love them. I hope you embrace the general, platonic love in your life and I hope you know that that is enough for you on this Valentine’s Day.
Sending you love!
Thanks for reading! xx