HOLLY CULP
Valentine’s Survivor
February is the worst time of the year. It is the shittiest, most depressing month of all, except perhaps March. Maybe it is the prospect of March approaching that makes February such a crappy month.
Christmas is long over, we have given up or failed miserably at our New Year’s resolutions and spring seems eons away. It’s cold, it’s dark and thank Jesus it is also the shortest month of the year. So, is it any wonder that people decided to put a day dedicated to love and hearts and candy right in the middle of it?
In elementary school Valentine’s Day was the ultimate gauge for how popular you were. Or at least at my elementary school it was. You bought your Barbie or Toy Story valentines and made them out to all of your good friends, the people you liked and the people that were considered “popular.” Some parents made their children fill out valentines for every single person in their class; my parents were not concerned about a second grader’s feelings enough to care about who I made my valentines out to. As a consequence of this, any kid who I thought was too smelly, too weird or whose name was too difficult to spell was left out.
And then the day would roll around and you could see who had the most valentines (whoever was the most popular) or who got the least (Smelly McSmellertons). This is a terrible practice and looking back I wish all parents forced their kids to send valentines to everyone. Keep in mind that I went to school with the same 20 kids for all of elementary and middle school and those valentines were prophetic in telling who was cool and who was smelly. Not that your nose wouldn’t be able to tell you.
That was Valentine’s Day as I remember it when I was eight. Nowadays, it is this complicated mess of things like feelings and loneliness.
What if we were to apply my elementary school’s Darwinian version of Valentine’s Day to our present-day college kid version? I think maybe we already have. We exclude everyone who isn’t our chosen significant other or object of admiration. I wish the day wasn’t so exclusive to people in relationships or the popular kids of second grade.
Valentine’s Day is a holiday built to make people feel bad about themselves because they, like the smelly kids of my elementary years, have yet to attract other people. I think that most people our age are built to just ignore Valentine’s Day as if it were any other shitty day in February. I don’t know anyone right now who actually cares about Valentine’s Day. Maybe I am surrounded by the people who didn’t get enough valentines in grade two and have since written off the day as a waste.
Even though we don’t care about Valentine’s Day, I think we should try to reclaim it. And even though February is a bad month, the day is an opportunity to make things a little less shitty.