Nothing had ever made me feel like more of a loser than opening the annual heart-shaped box of chocolates from my mom accompanied by a sticky note hastily inscribed with the words, ‘you’ll always be my valentine xoxo.’
It’s a yearly tradition, which at first started out as a cute way to get five-year-old-me happy on Hearts Day, but, has now turned into a pathetic excuse for me to eat my loneliness in the form of caramel-filled pockets of broken dreams. It’s the yearly tradition of Valentine’s Day, probably the lamest, most commercialized glob of hooey that has ever taken center stage in the realm of modern holidays.
It’s a day where girls, including me, always hope for a bundle of flowers from that super-special someone, and are let down year and year again. It’s a day where guys are pressured into buying overly-priced pink crap that sits on the shelves of ungrateful, overly attached girlfriends for weeks on end until it’s eventually thrown away when the entire relationship crumbles. It’s a day where we all hope something special happens, when, in fact, we all secretly know that Valentine’s Day sucks.
And it seems this year like every year we resolved to not care or not get our hopes up for not be single on Valentine’s Day when, in fact, the holiday never fails to be a cheap way for stores to rob us of the money we hastily borrowed from our parents the night before.
But I guess at the end of the day spending Single’s Awareness Day over a box of chocolates from my mom wasn’t that embarrassing. I’m glad to know someone always there for me, whether or not its February, and whether or not my sweatpants match my t-shirt.
So thanks to my mother, who stays up late to talk about politics and history, who doodles ballerinas when she talks on the phone, and who sings ‘my milkshakes bring all the boys to yard’ when she makes dinner, for being my valentine this year. Just know that next year, if I totally ditch you for the first guy that asks me out so I never have to spend another high school Valentine’s Day single, you will always be my valentine too.