This Year Will Be My First Year Celebrating Valentine’s
And I am spending it with the person who needs my love the most: Myself.
My ex-husband didn’t believe in Valentines Day. “It’s all just marketing, trying to convince you to spend more money on things you don’t need”, he would say, “we don’t need a special day to celebrate our love, we do that every day”. I eagerly agreed. It was decided, in our 12 years together, we never celebrated Valentine's Day in any shape or form. But did we celebrate our love for each other every day? Probably not. Especially in the last few years, I cannot remember any day that we celebrated or showed our love for each other, it had gone long before we both noticed.
Last year on Valentine’s Day I was trapped in an abusive relationship. I cannot remember what happened on Valentine’s day. Although we had been together for nearly a year, we were still a secret thus couldn’t go out or have any physical evidence of our relationship. So there was no card or gift, I am not even sure if we spend the day together or if he spent it with one of his mistresses perhaps. All I know is that Valentine’s Day has never been a special day for me. This year will be different.
This year I am going to celebrate
This year I am spending Valentine’s with the person who needs my love the most: myself. And I couldn’t have chosen a better partner to celebrate my first ever Valentine’s with! Someone who knows exactly what I want and need and is kind and compassionate. Someone who has an awful lot of love to give and only figured out recently that she has been giving it to the wrong people for too long. This day is going to be the best day ever.
I will wake up, probably spread across the entirety of my king-size bed, wrapped in my duvet that I now cannot imagine ever having covered more than one person. The room will be so warm and cosy because my thermostat is set to a female-compatible room temperature. And then, still cuddled up in bed, I might order a Starbucks breakfast, cheers to the pandemic for boosting these delivery services.
There will be music in all the rooms all day long
I will eat when I am hungry, nap when I am tired, play a game when I am bored and start and stop watching different movies depending on how my mood changes. I will listen to one song over and over again, on full blast in the entire house, and if I feel like it, I will dance and sing like a madwoman in the living room to it.
I might treat myself
Maybe I will go out to the shops and buy all the things no one needs that are just “marketing Valentine’s Day”, like the giant plush unicorn or very tacky heart decorations. I might even buy myself a card, write affirmations on it and send it to myself.
Then I will order too much food, taking advantage of all the “Valentine’s offers” and I will eat it wherever I like. If I make crumbs or drop something, I vow to pick them up the next day but I will not hear any voices in my head over how clumsy or messy I am. I am me, and I love myself with all my flaws.
I will allow myself to feel
There might be a time of the day where I feel sad or angry, but that’s OK. I am still healing and I can allow myself to feel emotions as they come without judgement. I know now that these emotions are normal, the most important part is that I focus on myself, listen to myself.
I might stick a very cheesy movie on, Gone with the Wind or Titanic comes to mind. And at the most ridiculous scene’s I might feel tears coming up, but I will not suppress them, or feel embarrassed. No one is watching me. I might cry for long after the movie has ended: “Oh handsome Leonardo, what a kind and selfless soul you were.”
I will not judge
Maybe I won’t make my bed, and leave the dirty dishes on the dining table too long. Maybe I will eat too much chocolate, or drink some beer or smoke cigarettes. Maybe I will leave the door open when I go for a pee. Maybe I won’t do any of the things I had set out to do. Maybe I will spend too much money on clothes I am never going to wear. Maybe I will come up with completely new ideas, or write articles that I decide to bin later rather than publish.
I will look in the mirror and I will look at the things that I love about myself only. I will notice that the imperfections I have been beating myself up on are actually tiny in comparison to the perfections my body has to offer. Today is not the day to shun me for the weight that I haven’t lost, today is the day to celebrate and love my body just the way it is.
The key to improving yourself is loving yourself just the way you are first
I will not be alone
This year is the first year that I am spending Valentine’s Day alone. The world is in a global pandemic and I haven’t seen my family for half a year. I cannot visit friends or go out and meet new people. It might seem like it will be the most challenging Valentine’s Day I ever had to go through. But I will not be lonely.
The most important lesson I have learned this year is the importance of self-love. What better day to celebrate this than Valentine’s. I might be single, but I am not alone. I will embrace and celebrate this day, for the first time ever. I know there are many others in the same situation as me. I know it can feel like a struggle sometimes, but we will get there and the result will be ultimate happiness: Happiness from within.