In the beginning, God created Valentine’s Day…and me.
The first time I vividly remember starting to despise Valentine’s Day was in the fourth grade, back when everything revolved around paper valentines and fun size candy — not romance. Flash backwards in time to little fourth grade me waking up to chocolate hearts and a new bright blue dress from mom, and happily going to school, eagerly awaiting the inevitable candy mania that would be ensue during class. But life was cruel to this tiny me.
Naïve, optimistic Gina pre-Valentine’s Day disaster, in all her wire-rimmed glasses glory.
During my usual heated game of morning Four Square, I was suddenly hit with sharp pain all throughout my neck, and I naturally started screaming until someone took me to the school nurse. It turns out a rogue bee had stung me in the neck. I also happened to be allergic to bees, so my neck swelled to the size of a small goat, and elementary school me didn’t get any valentines that day.
Little did that bee know, it had forever changed my outlook on Valentine’s Day. It would be a time of white-hot rage directed towards all Valentine’s activities.
Okay, a bee sting isn't actually the reason I hate Valentine's Day, it's just an excuse. The truth is that as I've grown older and wiser, I've continually resented everything Valentine's Day stands for. Even when I’ve been in relationships on Valentine’s Day, I still hate it and forbid my boyfriend from celebrating or else. I disagree with the universal rule that we can designate a day for people to love each other more. Pink doesn’t look good on anyone. PDA gives me anxiety. I can’t get a reservation anywhere decent. Enough said.
How to alter a mindset and stop being a Valentine’s troll.
After years of being that person that endlessly complains about Valentine’s Day, I finally got tired of listening to myself being a total troll. I spent a lot of time ranting or bringing others down, and decided I needed to change or be forever trapped in my hateful bubble.
RELATED: I Followed My Mom's Dating Advice for a Week & Here's What Happened
While I still had issues with spending the day loving people more — since should just be an all the time thing, I chose to instead spend the day loving myself, seeing as it’s something I do less frequently.
My mind was made up. This Valentine’s Day I would celebrate me.
Treat yo-self.
In order to celebrate myself, I set out time to participate in the activities I truly love. The first of these activities is eating.
What better way to start out a morning than with cupcakes for breakfast?
Thank you, Trader Joes!
And gravy covered French fries for a romantic lunch with myself?
Yes, this exists.
No, my choices were not the healthiest, but living the life of a collegiette female can be hard nutritionally. I gravitate towards a ridiculously healthy diet despite my cheeseburger craving personality, and to truly celebrate myself involved partaking in my go-to treat foods. Food can honestly make a whole day better, and so a huge part of celebrating me meant celebrating the snacks I most love.
Another favorite activity of mine is being by the ocean, thus a large portion of my day was spent exploring California’s central coast, and celebrating the nature all around me. Don’t worry; I didn’t get stung by a bee this time.
The beauty of Montana de Oro state park.
I think a huge part of overcoming my Valentine’s Day troll demeanor was to actually leave my house. I usually spend the whole day inside wearing black and ironically watching horror movies, but forcing myself to leave and join society changed that perspective. My mindless rage and restless energy could be converted into a beautiful time of hiking and sightseeing. Also, I now have a brilliant product idea to bottle endorphins and sell them to other Valentine’s Day trolls like myself, in an attempt to get rich quick and put an end to the suffering pervading singles on February 14.
RELATED: My Girlfriend & I Celebrated Valentine's Day Like a Normal Couple for the First Time
Dealing with couples and other rage triggering people.
Forcing myself to leave the house and exist in the outside world meant actually confronting Valentine’s Day — in other words, the hundreds of couples holding hands. My current relationship status is single potato, and while I don’t necessarily have a problem with couples on a day-to-day basis, I definitely have issues with them on Valentine’s Day because they’re literally everywhere. No place is safe. They crawl from the woodworks like they’re coming from some demented anthill, and poison my perfect little picnic of singleness.
However, to celebrate myself meant honoring my mind with positive thoughts. Thus I had to suffocate all negative emotions and hateful rants that filled my head, and actually *throws up in mouth* be happy for the plethora of young lovers around me.
Mindless bitterness is not conducive to self-love. I needed to take a big step back, and stop comparing my current life situation to those of people who are blissfully dating. Celebrating myself means celebrating everything about me, and be fulfilled by where I am now instead of focusing on the destination ahead of me.
When I started to feel bad about the day, I practiced mindfulness and instead mentally celebrated one thing that I was proud of in my life at the moment. This greatly increased my capacity for joy, and throughout the day all the white-hot disgust I usually feel dissipated from my vision.
If Valentine's Day is about love, then let's make it about love.
As mentioned frequently above, I fundamentally disagree with the designation of a day for loving. Honestly, it’s something that should just happen all the time, in every circumstance, everywhere. Valentine’s Day usually has the opposite effect on me, and instead of loving people, I build up a lot of resentment for them on February 14, spending my time fantasizing about mass destruction. This is a huge contrast to my usual optimistic and friendly demeanor.
Instead of shooting laser beams from my eyes at every passing citizen, I did something I never do, which is spend time with people on Valentine’s Day, specifically with people that love me a lot. This meant having a Valentine’s Day dinner with one of my greatest friends, my mom and her best friend.
Even though I'm smiling like I'm dead inside, I'm actually really happy. I promise.
All of us are single women, treading the nauseating waters of a day that favors couples. The thing about us is that we all love really hard, all the time. Having a lovely dinner together made it feel like just any other day, when we celebrate each other’s existences without reason or pressure to do so.
RELATED:15 Reasons Why Your Galentine is Better than a Valentine
In celebrating each other, it also became easier to celebrate myself. It helped me to see that with a change of heart, I could remove myself from the constraints of Valentine’s Day and truly make it a day to celebrate me, and as an extension the things and people that I love.
Fellow Valentine’s Day trolls, it doesn’t have to be as bad as we make it. This does not need to be a day of complaints, moping and negativity. Love doesn’t require a partner or gifts to be spread, and instead of acutely feeling the absences in our lives, we should take the time to celebrate the consistency of ourselves. I look forward to seeing how this day turns out next year, and will definitely continue the tradition of celebrating me.