This year, like many before it I am single for Valentine’s Day. However, my heart has never been so full of love and gratitude for where I am that I had very little time today to think about where I am not.
Valentine’s Day when you’re single is kind of a funny thing because every year is a little bit different. I’ve had my share of Valentine’s Days where I was wishing I wasn’t single; I’ve had Valentine’s Days where I just celebrated the love I have for family and friends; and I’ve had Valentine’s Days where the day just happened and I didn’t really feel anything at all. But this year, this Valentine’s Day has been one of my favorites in how I’ve been feeling.
For the past few years one of my best friends and I have made a routine of spending Valentine’s Day together. We go and see a movie (90% of the time a romcom) and then sometimes discuss the movie over drinks or a bottle of wine. It’s a great tradition that started because we planned (optimistically one fall in college) that we’d go on a double date on Valentine’s Day, however when the day rolled around and both of us were sans significant other we kept the date and just ditched the double. This year she let me know that she wouldn’t be able to partake, which coincidentally worked out for me since I was scheduled to coach, and I was left thinking about what this Valentine’s Day alone would look like.
Love is truly all around us if we’re still enough to let ourselves feel it. Today I have been overwhelmed by the love I have for family and friends. I have felt the love in a deep appreciation for myself and where I’ve grown, but also feeling love in the areas in which I’m still growing. I have felt joy in the fitness class I took today and was reminded of all the ways my body physically shows up for me everyday and how beautiful that is. Love is in the way my cat never fails to greet me when I get home each day. In the work I have been doing with myself, on myself, and for myself I have found the ability to recognize all the different types of love that there are and those are the ones I’m celebrating today.
I was talking with one of my best friends who has known me for years when the question came up of if there were any potential significant others in my life and I shared that while the answer is no, I think I’m in a place where I know myself well enough that I could get to know someone else now. I am much more grounded in myself now than I’ve ever been, I am much more in tuned with my story and loving of myself as a whole person and being unafraid to live boldly and I think I needed this time to do that.
Valentine’s Day when you’re single can bring so many different emotions to rise. If you’re wishing you were in a relationship, finding your way out of a relationship, feeling the love of friends or family or pets or partners, or simply just in the process of falling in love with yourself — wherever you are on your path and whatever this day may have given rise to in you– know that those feelings are valid and none are less important than anything else. You get to live and love how you want. All of our paths are different and all loves are not the same but you deserve a love that fits in all the ways you need it to and none of the ways it doesn’t serve you.
This valentine’s day I’m celebrating so many things about love but mostly I’m celebrating the time & attention I have been giving myself to get to know myself. It’s a deeper more thoughtful and sometimes more challenging version of self-love/self-care but it’s been so rewarding.
What did Valentine’s Day mean to you this year?
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