Happy Valentine's Day

I have always had this romanticized version of Valentine's Day. Perhaps it is because I watched my dad giving my mom flowers and a card on February 14th every year and giving her a kiss. Or maybe it is from all of the chick flicks I saw growing up or the commercials from the jewelry stores that they aired every year during the Valentine's Day season. No matter how the romanticized version of Valentine's Day came to me, I always saw myself giving a dozen red roses to the one I loved with a card and then taking them out on a romantic candlelit dinner. However, that version has never happened to me.

So, this year, I decided I wanted to know the origins of the holiday and let me tell you that the legends behind the holiday do not leave me with that romanticized version of Valentine's Day. The first two legends about this special day come from the saints Valentine or Valentinas that gave the holiday its name. The first Valentine was said to have been imprisoned and fell in love with a young girl, believed to be the jailer's daughter. Before he died, Valentine sent the young girl one of the first "valentine" cards. He sent a letter to her and signed it "From your Valentine."

The second namesake for the holiday was Valentine who was a priest who served during Emperor Claudius II's reign. It is said that Emperor Claudius II realized that single young men serve more faithfully as soldiers than men with wives and families, so Claudius decreed that young men couldn't get married. However, Valentine realized the injustice of this decree and secretly married the young lovers. When Claudius found out about Valentine marrying the young lovers, he ordered Valentine put to death.

Another legend that brought our beloved holiday about was initially a pagan holiday. The holiday Lupercalia was celebrated in February on the fifteenth. On this day members of the Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would meet at the cave where Romulus and Remus were believed to have been taken care of by the she-wolf. The priests would sacrifice a goat for fertility and a dog for purification.Then the priests would then strip the goat of its hide, in strips, and then dip the strips of hide in the sacrificial blood. They would take to the streets gently slapping women and crops with the strips of hide. The women held no aversion to this because it was believed to make them more fertile for the coming year. Later in the day, the single women would all put their names in an urn and the bachelors would draw names. The name they drew was the woman they would be paired to for the rest of the year and most of those pairs, according to the legend, ended up in marriage. Some people have suggested that the Catholic church placed St. Valentine's Day in the middle of February to "Christianize" the pagan celebration Lupercalia.

I don't know about you, but the blood of a sacrificed goat and dog to make women and crops more fertile and the martyrdom of some men named Valentine has made the holiday a little less romanticized. Don't get me wrong, I still find the idea of expressing my love for a significant other very important and romantic, but the origins of the holiday have made the fact that I am not in a relationship a little less of a slap in the face. I am more able to accept my singleness this year now that I have realized that I am surrounded by people I love and now that I know some of the origins of Valentine's Day.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone.
From your Valentine.

To Love Freely

In a few days, we will be lucky to acknowledge the ones we love by telling them with cards, candy, flowers, or jewelry that we love them. Though, once day a year should never be enough to express for those closest to us we love them. Valentine's Day is indeed a very important day, but perhaps we should allow it to mean more.

Over the past years, I have been among the unlucky few (or many) who don't have a significant other with whom to share Valentine's Day. I saw this holiday as a way for those with someone to rub that fact in the noses of the rest of us who don't have a special someone. In fact, I started to refer to it as Singles Awareness Day or SAD day because you become extremely aware of your single status; Facebook has done nothing to help with that awareness. I began to notice more the couples holding hands, kissing, and showing all forms of affection for each other. I became very embittered and more and more hateful seeing public displays of affection. Love seemed to be a foreign thing I would never know and it hurt. Loneliness is never what anyone wants.

However, this year, though I don't have anyone to call my love, boyfriend, partner, etc., I have a new desire to look at loved ones, though not intimate loved ones, that I can surround myself with as a blessing. I have great friends, family, parents, a grandmother, and many others that I can list among those I love and that love me. I realize how blessed I am to have so much love in my life. I am blessed and I want to acknowledge, this year, that love.

I love and am loved. Who could ask for more? I used to think love was just thrown around without thinking of its true purpose behind its use. But who can judge the intent behind using love so freely? I am not one who can judge. Love should not be contained because I am bitter about not having a significant other to share it with. Love is. Love should not be stifled or hidden. This year, Singles Awareness Day is no more for me; SAD day is not existent. I can't let it be ruinous to the positive energy with which I want to surround myself.

To my friends, I love you. Mom and Dad, eu te amo. To my brothers and sisters, 愛してる . This year, whether you say, "je t'aime;" "eu te amo;" "愛してる;" "ich liebe dich;" "我爱你;" "Ti amo;" "Я вас люблю;" "I love you," or any other variation of the phrase, don't worry about how you say I love you, just say it.