What could have been and why you should have taken advantage of all-you-can-eat-chocolate day
I don’t want to hear it. I just don’t. All the complaining about being single and having no one and being forever alone is enough. I don’t want to hear a single word about how horrible it is to not have someone send you cute texts before you go to bed or to leave an overstuffed teddy bear and box of chocolates at your door when you wake up. Frankly, I’m over everyone making such a big deal of Valentine’s Day. It’s just a made-up day, after all. Like, who was Valentine anyway? The King of Love? Why does he deserve a day, hmmm?
Why can’t I deserve a day?
Why can’t I have a Taylor Day?
Actually, I know the answer to that question. If I had my own day, my own special twenty-four hours, then I would actually be the most obnoxious human being ever. Not to say I’m already the most obnoxious human being ever. Because I probably am. So what? My roommates don’t seem to mind that I’m a compulsive cleaner or that I can’t match an outfit to save my life or that I like to eat oatmeal with huckleberry jelly and salt. Obnoxious? Maybe. But not half as obnoxious as this whole Buzzfeed-induced obsession over how we try to convince each other that it really is better to be single than to be going steady.
On February 14th, all of social media is dedicated to one of two camps: a) bragging about one’s significant other or b) bemoaning one’s lack of a significant other. And pictures, oh lord, the pictures. I’ve already seen more red and pink today than I care to see ever again. Side note: I love red and hate pink. Weird? Nah. Obnoxious? Let’s not start that again…
So with all this red and pink and chocolate and poems and Cupids flying around, everything remotely romantic suddenly seems acceptable to greater society, because it is that fateful day. The fateful day everyone complains about. Even if people are in a relationship, they seem to still complain. It’s like there is this expectation to do something grand on Valentine’s Day — for both women and men. Men are expected to be thoughtful and pay for a nice dinner or a romantic hot air balloon ride around Catalina. Women are expected to reciprocate in some way (I won’t go into that).
For the single folks in the world, they seem to alternate between the gourmet box of chocolates they bought for themselves and the couch where they bawl as Jack holds Kate over the edge of that ill-fated ship, and she oh-so-dramatically flies into history as a Victorian babe. Oh wait, that’s just the single women. How do single men spend Valentine’s Day? Probably trying to game a single woman. Hey, just keeping it real. Good luck to my single guy friends, but please, for the sake of the rom-com industry, please cut the sleaze and amp up the sweet. All in all though, this day seems to only add to the stress that is already threatening to crash onto our carefully balanced microcosms of commitment. And to this I say: enough.
My fear is that once this fateful day has passed (as it has most certainly passed by now), we will look back in remembrance and only remember the bad parts. We’ll remember the overpriced dinner, the flowers that wilted too soon or the stomachache from the choco-infused food coma. We’ll remember feeling alone. We’ll remember stress. Why does it have to be this way? Do you, my dear readers, want to know what I did during Valentine’s Day growing up? Don’t ask. I’ll tell you.
I’d wake up to the sweet smell of love. My angel of a mother used to make our family waffles and ice cream for breakfast. I made red-heart cutouts for my friends and tried to think of little poems for each of them. Maybe I had too much time on my hands. Either way, we made it fun. I think it was fun because it was outside of myself. I wasn’t alone. I had my family and friends and celebrity crush Zac Efron. I had a belly full of waffles and a backpack full of homemade goodies. Shout out to my mom for being not only the wisest, most beautiful and gracious of all human beings, but also for making the waffles from heaven. They will forever occupy a golden place in my memory.
Although Valentine’s Day has passed, let us break out the waffle iron to whip up some golden wonderfulness for our friends. It is a made-up day after all, so let’s make it up again. Let’s break out the ice cream, too. Not to drown our sorrows into, but to celebrate the love we have for each other and for this truly blessed life we live. And, as for making valentines, we may not have time for that, but I have heard CVS has Hannah Montana and Cars punch-outs that do the trick. Let’s make Valentine’s Day as fun and childlike and obnoxious as Taylor Day would be. If all else fails, treat this day as a free pass to consume obscene amounts of chocolate. Which is never a bad thing.
Ayo waves.
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Follow Taylor Nam on Twitter: @nam_nam330
