So I was all set to write about how if you seek to find meaning in Valentine’s day, or if you seek to gain acceptance of it or make peace with it, what you should focus on always is number one: yourself.
I really wanted to bring you guys to tears; to make you realize that a feast that celebrates love can be at its core a feast and a holiday and a reason for self-love– that important and primal and instinctual part of ourselves which in healthy doses is accountable for mentally healthy people who respect and love others and are productive members of society.
But then I thought about this: why is it that no one feels compelled to have to talk up another couple of borderline-made-up holidays* such as Halloween and St. Patrick’s day?
It’s because the candy is bad, isn’t it?
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Halloween’s kiddie-Mardi Gras is nothing but a purely decadent smörgåsbord of ANY kind of candy you can dream up –pitifully interspersed with a few healthy offerings such as the very rare apple, orange, or bag of pretzels– and St. Patrick’s day is a bacchanalian debauchery of alcohol where it’s understood that adults of a consenting age (and well, not-so-consenting age as well) who imbibe, WILL. And how.
So, you have pure sugar in all its forms, being hurled at you.
And you have alcohol and possibly boobies –though not hurled at you in Mardi Gras fashion, true. But hey: boobies.
And then you have Valentine’s day.
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Yes, there is much chocolate. Chocolate AND flowers, even.
But there are so many hurdles to attaining the chocolate– having a date seeming to be the paramount obstacle to it all; the procuring and securing thereof not even guaranteeing that chocolate or flowers (let alone sex) will be had.
So what’s left as the bait/offerings to make this day sweet?
Lame pre-cut pieces of paper, little hearts with cheeky messages that mostly taste like Styrofoam (but I will still eat because I’m weird and I also like Peeps), and Hershey’s Kisses and Hugs are all that you get.
– Garbage.
– Nasty candy that manages to taste stale when fresh (aside from my tastebuds: "Mmm!").
– Crappy chocolate and crappier white chocolate.
I’m telling you: Valentine’s day needs to hang on dearly to the concept of self-love and either go Exotic Erotic Ball on us or find some diabetic association to picket against it, so the sheer tension of it all makes us eat more candy and feel guiltier until we’re rapt in a viciously delicious cycle where our mouths just water, Pavlovian, whenever anyone even faintly mentions the word "Valentine".
But anyway…. this is all just to say HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!!!
May you find merriment and love today, in whatever form feels right to you.
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* Don’t you get all defensive with me now, people. By what I just said I mean that celebrating Pagan New Year or a minor saint elsewhere in the world are not a top priority religionwise for most people– but are a top priority for Party Depot, M&M/Mars, the beer industry, and Hallmark.
A Daily Dose of Zen Sarcasm! 
Horse hockey. This holiday is great for people who have someone to share it with, or intrepid souls who want to wander the landscape showering random passer-by with confections and cocoa derivitives. For the rest of us … it’s just another reminder that no one finds us worthy. Love is indeed wonderful – but the holiday stinks.
Whatever… I’d like to have boobies thrown at me (soo to speak) for all holidays.
I have someone to share it with(been married almost 23 years)… but it passes every year just like any other day – unobserved… I used to get him something every year, and he’d make a fuss that I shouldn’t have because he didn’t get me anything, and after a few years I just let it go, too…
I always use Valentines as my own private celebration of becoming a mother, as its the day my daughter was due. i don’t celbrate the day itself (17th), partly because the 17th five years ago was not very much fun at all as I spent most of it in very painful labour, and partly because as usual this year, we are going to be invaded by a whole army of small children this afternoon (aged five this year!) and I’m going to need a stiff drink just to get over it