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[av_heading heading=’Post-Valentine Consolations’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY ROMA GONZALES
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Wednesday, february 15, 2017
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YOU’VE made it through the 14th of February on your own (for whatever reasons you are alone), but you know it’s too early for the felicitous self-tap just yet. They haven’t taken down the heart decors in the malls and there will be photos of flowers and chocolates and dinner dates all over social media. The hugots are even worse. You have got to hang on in there for a week or so.
Despite them saying Valentine’s Day isn’t for lovers only and should be a celebration of all forms of love, screw them. Nothing could make the awareness of your loneliness – or independence, as you call it – more acute than this forced misdirection. You are alone, either by chance or choice, and that’s it. Capitalism (Hallmark, chocolate and jewelry brands, et. al.) will try to make you feel lonely (and ugly) but they can only succeed partially if you have already made peace with the truth that you are indeed alone, either by chance or choice.
Be reminded, however, that not all couples are happy. It’s amusing and sad to imagine how many woke up yesterday groaning to the pressures of unrealistic expectations (ridiculously expensive bear bouquets and candlelit dinner, for instance) and how many fell asleep oblivious to the consequences nine months after. We do not mean to sour grape, of course. Just be reminded of the fact that so many people get into relationships for the poorest of reasons, and that the lonely one, the one without a date, is actually at a better position than them on yesterday’s holiday.
Believe, if you haven’t found cynicism safe and secure yet, that it will be worth it someday. Just don’t hold your breath so long you can’t breathe. Save it. Save it because the modern concept of romantic love didn’t exist until the 19th Century France. As someone put it, “Love, like religions, is another human invention to fill this desolate existence.” Ah, does that not make you a cynic yet?
Take advantage of this freedom to better your self. More than anything, the one you should be searching for is the person in the mirror, in the pages of your journals, in the thoughts you welcome in your head, in the dreams you whisper secretly to yourself, in the things you do when you think no one is looking, in the prayers you say at night, and in the way you treat others especially those you have no apparent need for. Other people will come and go, but when you do find that one person, you will be all right.
Go find a hobby (before a hubby). Learn a new language or skill. Read books especially those that do not fill your head with romantic delusions. Meet people. Change careers. Define life and love and success with your own words.
There will come a 14th of February you will not have to spend alone. Or maybe there won’t. But Valentine’s Day, when it stops getting to your head, can be your favorite holiday because that’s when you can feel the strongest and the most comfortable with solitude and with yourself, and as that song says, isn’t that the greatest love of all? For the meantime, treat yourself to one of the perks of the season – dinner on promos. Learn to smile graciously when they ask if it’s a table for two./PN
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