It's Valentine's Day. As I'm laying on my bed, drinking from a week old bottle of water because I'm too lazy to a get fresh one, many couples are enjoying their time together. They are exchanging useless expensive gifts they felt the pressure to buy, going to fancy restaurants that just for today turn every single thing in the menu into a heart shaped thing, posting pictures on Instagram to prove that their relationship is going as great as all the others.
I see my sister arrive from her date with fresh flowers, I hear my friend telling me on the phone that the evening with her sweetheart was perfect. As for myself, I had dinner with my parents who, every year, don't make plans basically because they are too lazy but also to not leave me alone.
There's one thing I have learned in my life: everything has a bad side and a silver lining. Nothing's entirely good or bad in itself, and it all depends on the way we see things.
And while reflecting on that, I had a thought: being alone on this day, but mostly every day, is okay.
I believe that there's magic in the idea that by having so much time alone with myself, I'll eventually fall in love with me. I'll have a relationship as strong as Noah and Allie in The Notebook, with love and passion and dedication to myself. Truth is, we are so busy trying to find someone else to fall in love with, that we forget to fall in love with ourselves. We forget to be nice to us, to find our pleasures and turn them into a habit, to live our best lives.
I think about the many things I have done to get a guy to like me (like change my hair color or attend boring parties), and I wish I had done them for me. Imagine how awesome it would be if you spent as much time as you do to get the hot guy at the yoga class to like you for yourself.
Have you ever taken yourself on a date? Have you bought yourself a gift? Have YOU said the wonderful things you're waiting for Prince Charming to say to you to yourself? Why do we give away so much power to others in determining the amount of love we will have in our short lives?
And of course this could sound like the opinion of a girl who has it figured out and doesn't care, which is something I am not; I, too, cry sometimes at night worrying that I will never meet a good guy. But I choose to see the silver lining in this situation. It's time for me, and you too, to enjoy time with ourselves. To have a fairy tale relationship with ourselves. After all, you are all you’ll ever have.