Valentine's Day and my two cents

There are always plenty of opinions floating around the media this time of year. Whether it's better to be single or in a relationship, whether you should celebrate or not, whether the whole idea of Valentine's Day is a corrupt, commercialized waste, and articles about the actual history of the day, to name a few. With so much stuff in our faces, it can be hard to decide how we should feel, let along how we actually feel.

Here are my two cents (since you asked for it).

Valentine's Day is, in the eyes of social media and popular culture, a lot like beauty. There's been a lot of talk about it, especially in the past several years. But it's basically a lose/lose situation, because people don't typically talk about the fact that you can't absolutely quantify things like beauty and holidays. When we talk about how beauty is on the inside and we need to teach young girls to care about more than just makeup, we neglect to remind them that it's perfectly acceptable for them to care about how they look. It's 100% okay for little girls to want to be princesses or moms, instead of scientists and doctors. And it's fine if they want to be both. We forget to tell them that feminism doesn't necessarily mean they can't embrace femininity, and we forget to tell them that it goes both ways. When I read letters from parents to their daughters and sons about their future spouses or how to properly date, we forget to assure them that being single won't mean they're incomplete. In all this talk on all the things we can be, it ends up feeling a lot more like of list of things we can't.

I have a man in my life that I adore, and I chose to spend my Valentine's Day apart from him, celebrating with a dear friend of mine instead. It doesn't mean I hate Valentine's Day or that I think I'm better than couples giving and receiving romantic gifts. It just means that this time around, my celebration with a friend is more pressing than a dinner date that I'm supposed to have. But if I'd chosen to make plans with my gentleman, it wouldn't have made me any less of a woman.

Here's the thing: If you like Valentine's Day, celebrate it, even if you're single. And if you don't like it and all the things that it arguably implies, let the day pass. It's just a day. And while it's definitively true that love, all kinds, can be celebrated any day of the year, it's just as true that it's nice to set aside a special day for it. Because it's nice. And just like your decision to wear dresses over jeans or heels over sneakers doesn't give you the expertise to comment on the woman or manhood of any other person, neither does your affinity, or lack thereof, for this day give you the privilege to scoff those who feel differently.

The world is a big, big place, but it somehow manages to feel really small. There will be more voices in it than you could ever imagine, and there's not much we can do to change them. Today, though, you can choose to which voices you're listening, and you can choose what voice you're sending out.