The Daddy Blog: Valentine’s Day
One day of the year either to make you or break you. As a single parent this can be either the most trying of days or if you’re like me, just another day. For me, Valentine’s day was and forever will be just another day. Shouldn’t we show our love everyday? Yet, I know this can be a time for people that highlights their loneliness. Yes, you can still get lonely when you have a full life and children. You can be on the child treadmill running from one activity to the next, lunches, training, concerts, meetings, shopping, etc. You can have a life filled with people and children but when you close that door on the last visitor or you arrive home after dropping off the kids to your ex it can be devastatingly lonely.
After the initial euphoria of having some time to yourself, you will inevitably reach or turn to someone with whom you can share a great thought or something hilarious you just saw in a movie. It can shatter that euphoria in seconds and leave you feeling unworthy and discarded. Well, imagine that feeling on roids – that’s Valentine’s Day. But only if you give it power.
Valentine’s Day used to be different than it is now. Valentine’s Day used to be full of subterfuge and mystery. It was the only time you could dare to let someone know (albeit secretively) that you loved them. It was a time of courage yet a courage where you didn’t have to show it outwardly. You would send someone a card declaring your love but left it unsigned and therefore, very mysterious. You gave someone the thrill of being adored from afar thus toying with their mind for a year. They would look over their shoulder, check each look as if it was from their clandestine lover, imagine burning desire and let their fantasies run full course. That has all changed. Now, Valentine’s Day is a pageant of the ‘already coupled’. They flaunt their relationships in front of the lonely with no regard to the nausea (and envy) they are creating. They parade their chocolates and flowers as if it were a badge of honour. They fill restaurants in pairs and dominate the space with their loving
looks. It has become the gala of the ‘haves’ over the ‘have-nots’. Whilst it used to be the yearning of the ‘have-nots’ trying to build the courage to become a ‘have’.
As a single parent it can become a time to pull out the wine and watch ‘Love Actually’ or, for the more advanced in years, ‘Love Story’. It can be a time for tears and a time to yearn for unrequited love. It can be devastating. Or, if you’re like me, it can be just another day in which you watch the parade with an air of, not so much disdain, but imperviousness. You can give your loneliness power by thinking you’re lonely or you can keep yourself busy and wait for another day to come when your true love will walk into your life. Or if you happen to get a card in the mail from a secret admirer, you can torture yourself for months wondering who the hell it is.