What I Really Think About Valentine's Day

Ah hah! A Valentine's Day blog post! You knew it was coming.

I thought a lot about what I wanted to say about February 14th, considering it's one of my favorite holidays. It's one of those days that comes up really fast and then passes before we even have a chance to truly celebrate, but nevertheless, it still qualifies as one of the most meaningful days of the year for me.

We undervalue Valentine's Day. Or maybe, at the very least, we encourage the wrong values associated with the holiday. I think we need to talk more about the problems that now face Valentine's Day, and the problems that we face when it comes around and we're alone.

We put a lot of negative connotation around being single. I think my generation likes to trivialize this idea of being alone, as if it's a perpetual state of sadness that makes us unlovable and unwanted. We also tend to take the funny way out when we talk about being alone, as if it has something to do with how insignificant we must be. I'd like to challenge you to change the way you see being single. It's not #foreveralone, it's not something to shame somebody for, and it's certainly not an excuse to give up on your life. Why do we have to self deprecate ourselves in order to feel better about being on our own?

We tend to belittle ourselves whenever we get the chance to make a joke out of it. I'm not sure when we all started thinking that was humorous, but for some reason we do. I think it's sad that we spend more time making a joke out of ourselves than working on ourselves and encouraging others to do the same.

1) You're alive.

2) You have tons of other things to be happy about.

3) You have a ton of other people to be happy with.

(There's your list!)

There is absolutely no reason to use someone else's happiness as a driver for your discontent. Instead of defining yourself by who you don't have in your life, think about the people that you do have. Your family, your friends, your coworkers, your peers. Whoever it is that you say "I love you" to before you hang up the phone, that's who this day is meant for.

What was Valentine's Day like when you were a kid? We didn't care about dinner reservations or what we were posting on our Snapchat stories, we were sharing the day with our peers and our families. We exchanged cards with our classmates, we got candy from our parents, and we had the purest vision of what the day was all about. I'd like to encourage you to embrace that feeling that you had back then, and not to focus on being single or taken.

Use Valentine's Day as a way to appreciate those that you love. While we have holidays that focus more on "family love" like Christmas and birthdays, make February 14th your newest excuse to send cards, make FaceTime calls, and get together with those that you care about. Treat it like the holidays that we use to make others feel loved and to be grateful for the things we have right now.

xo Kate