To understand Valentine’s Day you have to let yourself become completely submerged within it.
Plan your night, purchase the reddest roses you can find, make valentines — tell someone significant in your life that you love them and have since the moment you laid eyes on them.
Participate in the anti-Valentine’s Day parties, purchase some sappy movies from RedBox and tell yourself that you hate everyone who celebrates Valentine’s Day because it is one big Hallmark piece of crap, while eating as much ice cream as you can consume in 24 hours.
Whatever you choose to do, make sure you do it with as much passion as you can, because when you are really passionate about something, no matter if it is positive or negative — some sort of enlightening experience is bound to come out of it.
For example, about two years ago I had an ex who bought me wilting flowers for Valentine’s Day because they were “half-price.” It wasn’t one of the best days I can remember having, but it wasn’t the worst either. A couple of years previous to that, I can remember specifically telling my little brother that I loved him, while purchasing him a candy bar with a very big smile on my face.
Whatever happens to you on this day, use it as a day to help create another chapter in your life. So what if you get dumped? So what if you get engaged? Okay, maybe not ‘so what’ about the engagement — that’s a big step. But regardless of what happens, the world will continue to turn and the seasons will change no matter if you have a wonderful Valentine’s Day or if you have a bad one.
With that bad night I had a little over two years ago, it helped me realize that maybe I was putting too much emphasis on what I thought the relationship could turn into, instead of what it actually was — the fact that my ex and I just did not work together.
By showing my brother I loved him with a simple candy bar, it helped to remind me that I should be thankful for the people I have in my life that bring me joy, that it is the small things that matter.
In bringing yourself back down to earth, realizing that everything in life does not happen solely on the basis of Valentine’s Day, you will see both the value and presence that everything has in your life that does not revolve around those 24 hours and take it as it is — another day to be thankful you had the freedom and time to either hate it or love it.