All The Single Ladies

Welcome (back) to my blog dear reader! I am so glad you are here. 😄 I hope you enjoy your time here.

This week I’m tackling the topic that I mentioned in my previous post, Valentine’s Day. “Now what could you possibly have to say about Valentine’s Day or even celebrating it? You’ve been single for your whole life.” Yes, dear reader. I hear you loud and clear. I have been single my whole life. But even still I have a lot to say about the holiday.

When I was growing up, Valentine’s Day was a lot of fun. My mom would leave mini boxes of chocolates at my and my siblings places at the dining room table for us to see first thing in the morning. (She actually still does. And I love it.) I also attended Valentine’s parties with my siblings and friends. Much like the parties held in elementary school classrooms around the holiday, we would decorate boxes or paper bags and pass out individual valentines to everyone. We would play games and consume way too much sugar. Red punch and cookies were a must. Even as a young adult, when I started working in childcare I loved dressing in seasonal outfits and making valentines for my students. But the older I’ve gotten, the more my feelings about the holiday have changed. There are a couple of reasons for this.

The first reason being, when I was first working as a preschool teacher at nineteen years old, very few of my friends were dating and even fewer were getting married. Now at almost 26, it seems like everyone has a significant other. Even though I know in my brain that this is not the case, there are times my emotional heart likes to think I’m the only one alone. This can be a challenge for me. Late at night or when I’ve been only around my family or co-workers for an extended period of time can especially be difficult. Now, don’t get me wrong. Most of the time I enjoy being single. However, there are times that it is annoying. And that is okay. Human beings are created for community and relationships. It is literally an instinctual human response to desire connection. So I am using this time of singleness to learn more about myself. I can’t be a good wife and mother someday if even I don’t know who I am. That’s another reason why I’m okay with these periods of frustration. Even with the greatest husband and children in the world I will still have days where I lose my temper. Controlling and learning from my frustration now is great practice. I’ll probably come back to the whole “season of singleness” thing at another time. But I have another reason why my feelings on Valentine’s Day have changed.

The holiday started out being called St. Valentine’s Day or the feast day of St. Valentine. In the Catholic Church, it is recognized that Valentine was a bishop in Rome. He’s the patron saint of love, young people, happy marriages, and even death. He was arrested and martyred (killed) for his efforts to evangelize to the people of Rome when Christianity was illegal. He is the patron for happy marriages because it is said that people who wished to be married in the church would go to him in secret to make their vows. Now, this hardcore approach to love and preserving the faith in comparison to extreme teddy bears and over priced candy is more than a little frustrating in my opinion. When I was growing up my family recognized the man behind the day but it still paled in saturation compared to the commercialism we were surrounded by when we left the house. So, I’ve taken a liking to promoting the real reason for the holiday. Sacrifice and doing whatever is necessary to protect the people and faith for whom I care so deeply. One of the ways I’ve chosen to remind myself is the image I included at the beginning of this post. The skull of St. Valentine can be found in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Rome. (Memento Mori, or Remember Your Death is another topic I’ll probably cover.) It might be a bit strange to some but for me, it’s another way to find the beauty in the crazy of life.

☀️💙