Love doubles.

Love the One You’re with…Even if it’s Just You!

It’s Valentine’s Day.  Again.  It happens every year.  It ruins every New Year’s resolution not to eat more sweets, not to go out to eat, not to judge oneself based on everyone else’s perfect Facebook lives.  The pain is real, my friends.  It’s enough to drown some people with all of the happy couples and their restaurant reservations and roses and “He went to Jared’s!” and long walks on the beach and trips to Paris and…

ENOUGH!  Why does romance rule the day?  Whatever happened to plain old love?

Here’s a challenge for you: This year, pick a valentine, but remove the pressure.  I’m changing the rules.  Your valentine doesn’t have to be your romantic partner—real or imaginary—or the shadow of a partner in a relationship too complicated for even a Facebook status.  Just pick anyone.  Your valentine could be the lady who always does your coffee right at the drive thru and who deserves a tip.  It could be the strange nerd lurking behind the pharmacy counter who grimaces at you (real person) and maybe needs a kind word.  Pick your mailman and leave him a note thanking him for delivering dry, timely mail.  This Valentine’s Day, please, just choose someone to love. 

Chip N' Dale always had such kind manners toward each other.

The problem with Valentine’s Day is that we think it sucks if someone isn’t loving us.  That’s not it.  It sucks when we choose not to love anyone.  After all, the fun of love is doing the loving.  And you wouldn’t believe how it spreads.  Kindness clones itself and hops from person to person.  Like amoebas, love splits itself and travels, then splits itself again until one loving act grows into countless others.  If you buy a bagel for that sad looking woman in line at the bakery, she may go to her job and split that bagel with that guy she loathes because, suddenly, she wants to be nice because you were nice to her.  Then that loathed guy is full of bagel and appreciation, and he decides to be a little less of a jerk that day.  From there, the feeling grows.

Having said all of this, you may still face a Valentine’s Day on your own.  Fear not!  There still is someone to love—yourself!  At lunch the other day, my friend Amy reminded me of the importance of self-sympathy.  She was working out at the gym with a friend who was always berating herself, calling herself weak and slow.  Amy stopped her.  She asked her friend if she would ever say the things she said about herself to Amy.  Shocked at the very idea, the friend said she would never speak so unkindly to someone else.  To that Amy replied, “Then why would you ever say those things to yourself???”

I love tea and biscuits. 

Why do we?  Why are we so hard on ourselves?  Maybe it’s time to stop.  This Valentine’s Day, speak kindly to everyone but especially to yourself.  Make special plans just for you.  It can be any of your favorite things.  Go see that movie you’ve been dying to see, get all of those snacks, and enjoy.  If it feels lonely, be kind to the theatre staff and even that moron who’s texting during the film (just this once).  Take a walk in your favorite place.  Cook your favorite meal.  Buy yourself flowers.  Get back to that fun project.  Drink red wine, eat lasagna, and watch your favorite film.  Laugh a lot.  Cry if you want to.  Whatever you do though, let it be an act of self-care.  It’s not arrogant to love yourself.  But it is foolish to think you’re not worth something special.

Love the one you’re with, my friends.  Single or paired, you are worth appreciating, so show others that they are as well.  Having done that, you’ll find not only that you’ve survived V-Day but also that the love you spread on February 14 has grown and wiggled its way, amoeba-like, into every other day of the year, too.

Whatever you say, Merlin loves you anyway.

Best wishes,

The Super Spinster