Valentine's Day thoughts
This is the fifth {or fourth} Valentine's Day I'm spending without a Valentine.
I'm not too sure if I ever said something about it on this blog but it used to matter a lot to me that I didn't have anyone to be cheesy with on a day which I thought was of purely commercial, unlucky-you-no-V-Day-girl nature. For a couple of years, I'd come home, watch both Bridget Jones movies and will myself to vow that the next February 14th would be a witness to me involved in a loving, committed, sweep-me-off-my-feet, can't-live-without-you, let's-join-the-throng-of-people-on-V-Day type of relationship.
Five (or four, I have seriously lost count) years since, it still hasn't happened.
Someone I was on a date with once asked me before what Valentine's Day meant to me and because I was on a date with him, I told him I was not the type to gush over flowers, a romantic date nor a Valentine's gift.
I was lying. I was wishing he would send me flowers that V Day but he didn't. So much for hoping. {Yes, a girl, like me, can hope}.
All throughout those years, I was a lost girl, trying to make sense of why I couldn't go into a relationship. Triggered by a question on why I didn't have a Valentine prodded me to think why I spent Valentine's days alone. My longest one lasted two years which means, outside of my family, my only proof of commitment was with my job. I began to think, "Was it me? Was I incapable of making something work? Was I supposed to not have been too nice? Was I too much of a 'snob'?"
And here is yet, the best of all questions, as pointed out by one of my friends:
Did I have too high standards?
I still don't have the answers, honestly. Until now, I have not grasped the concept of what it takes to be truly sharing life with someone in a relationship. I don't know how anyone else defines a girlfriend-boyfriend relationship but even if it's not marriage we're talking about, I am already thinking of all the physical space this person will be occupying in my life --- the one next to me when I eat my dinner, the one next to me when I watch a movie, the one where he drives me home from work, the one when he meets my parents, that one where he hangs out with my friends. Until recently, I have not taken the physical space factor when I had been trapped, physically, with someone I realized I couldn't stand.
Was I really ready for that?
I was stumped with my own question.
That was how I realized I wasn't ready for a relationship, let alone marriage, a second star in my daydreams. That day, I realized that the world had successfully molded me into thinking I was nothing until I could make someone carry my bag with big doe eyes and move heaven and earth to be with me and that I didn't want to be stuck in that mold, too. If Meredith Grey had her looking at babies pasttime, I read wedding blogs when I get stressed. I still do, even if I am quite sure I am not ready for one right now.
Relationships are a lot of work. If you think otherwise, check yours and see where you don't exert an effort and be honest at where it stands. I know this for sure because even my family is a LOT of work. We live in different time zones but we make it work. We make it work because we love each other and we choose to stay family despite the distance. It works because we exert time, money, effort with lots of love to make it work.
The same can be said of friendships we choose to keep. It lasts a long time because we choose to overlook things that do not break the non-negotiables in a friendship. It lasts because one chooses not to make a big deal out of cancelled plans and flaky moments. It lasts because one doesn't need to be right all the time, doesn't need to always have the upper hand. And in my book, an honest-to-goodness friendship is the foundation of a great relationship that leads to marriage.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
1 Corinthians 13: 4-8
There goes one of my biggest definitions of love --- and right now, I am not too sure I am ready to follow those words for one person, outside of the ones I have now, such as my family and friends, presumably the one I'll spend Valentine's Day with. Maybe it will happen when I am not looking, maybe it will happen when I resume looking, maybe it will happen if I followed the advice of elders and actually went out on dates, maybe it will happen when I am at home in front of my TV on Valentine's Day watching Serendipity {which I plan on doing, BTW}, maybe it won't.
I don't really know that now. What I do know is I am finally out of that cliche that at 27, I should be feeling bad I can't maintain a relationship and that I should be working on it and that I am a bad person just because I choose not to continue dating somebody. I would appreciate it if lines like "Why aren't you dating around, you're still young?" the 1990s sounding "Collect and collect then select," I hate women being collected so why should I do that to boys? --- stuff like these are stuff I wish would stop coming my way.
I know love now. I come from a world of broken promises, flimsy love, feels-like-love, maybe-it's-love world. So many times I've stopped dead in my tracks and decided I truly loved someone BUT no, in the Bible's words, I don't think I do. And while I do know how every girl deserves the best love she can get, I know for sure that the other party in my hypothetical future relationship deserves the best, too.
That is how I know I'm not ready.
Love is too special and wonderful and huge not to have my undivided, patient and everlasting attention and attention.
I can't plunge in it without going all in.
This is how I know it's the best Valentine's Day yet.
It's not hinged on another person, on an idea I'm trying to wrap my head around or the niche people are trying to put me into. I hope you're having an amazing day, too.
Happy Valentine's Day, kids.
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