Valentine’s Day: Happy, or Not?

My Valentine’s Day this year has been spent like this:

In the morning, I went to class and wrote a midterm. Of course, today was also the random day of “Let’s Lose My Pencil Case!”, which meant that I had to borrow from a friend. On the plus side, this particular friend is always ridiculously prepared for everything, which meant that I ended up getting two pencils, a sharpener, and a big, white eraser.

The test went rather well, but the class (a linguistics course about writing systems) is curved, so I have to do significantly better than the rest of my class in order to get the marks I want. Some of that above-average Lake Wobegon magic would be nice right about now.

Next was my German class, and my group for the oral midterm was slotted to go first (we were supposed to perform short scenes on various topics and include grammar we’d learned so far in the semester). Since my brain was still in the land of abjads and semantic-phonetic compounds, I tried to get things switched with another group. Wonderfully enough, the group I asked first were going to go last, and they really, really wanted to go first instead. So, me asking them to switch ended up giving everyone involved a great, big, wonderful gift. They got to go first, we got to go last, and each of our groups were really quite good, actually (theirs I know from seeing it; I have to trust outside reports for mine, because I felt like we did awful. Then again, I know how much we messed up our script).

Then I hung out with a friend for about three hours afterwards, just chatting, because she was staying on campus to wait for a friend of hers to finish classes so they could go hang out, and because I had nothing in particular to do and wanted to hang out. It was awesome. :)

When I finally got home, I discovered that no-one else had gotten home yet, which was slightly unusual, but I wasn’t really thinking much about that because all my mind could handle was: “Ooooh where is my pencil case?” I was actually rather worried, because that pencil case was actually a gift from a friend from when she went to China, so it has a ton of sentimental value for me.

Bad news: It wasn’t in the first place I looked.

Good news: It was in the last place I looked. But, then, that’s generally how things work when you look for things.

Eventually, people came home and we had supper, at which point my dad gave my mom a card and a Valentine’s Day gift basket. He also gave me and my youngest sibling each a card and a lovely bouquet of flowers (thanks, Dad! :D).

My mom, my dad, and I watched Lake House after supper. I love that movie. Every time I watch it, I find new things about it that make me appreciate it more. Today, I realized for the first time just how beautifully shot it is, and how much they show off the architecture in Chicago in such a way that it feels totally natural to be looking at various buildings while the two main characters have a conversation. I hope one day to be able to write description that elegantly.

And that was my day. Yes, I’m single. I’ve actually never had a boyfriend before. Possibly, that will change in the future, but I honestly would be totally ok if I stayed single for the rest of my life. Some people prefer to call today Singles Appreciation Day, mostly as a joke and mostly because they’re single. Honestly? I think that kind of joking covers up a feeling of lack that people can get when they realize it’s Valentine’s Day, they don’t have a significant other to share it with, and they feel like they need one for this day to be meaningful.

I don’t feel any lack. Sure, my day started off a little rough, but that hasn’t dampened my mood. I feel full, full of life and love and happiness.

You may be thinking “But you don’t know what you’re missing!”

Perhaps.

But perhaps gaining satisfaction is more simple than you think.

Perhaps “happy” and “single” belong in the same sentence after all.

Happy Valentine’s Day. I hope yours was wonderful and, if you didn’t get a card (and even if you did), here’s one from me:

Because, really, is there anything better than riding a turtle?

I didn’t think so.

:)

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