A Singleton's Valentine's Day

Okay, bloggers. So this was a hard post for me to write.

I cannot tell you how many times I wrote a few paragraphs, stopped, shook my head in agony, and then held down the backspace key. 

At first, I wrote an incredibly positive and cheerful Valentine's Day post. Valentine's Day is a holiday which celebrates love of all kinds! 

That's just what people say to make single people feel better about themselves, I thought, rolling my eyes.

Delete.

I then wrote an incredibly dark and bitter post. Valentine's Day sucks! I thought of all of the couples out there celebrating. Obviously, the women in these scenarios were all wearing beautiful Kate Spade cocktail dresses with matching heels, and the men had on crisp button-down shirts with perfectly ironed slacks. Fizzy champagne, Frank Sinatra over the Bose speaker system, couples feeding one another chocolate-covered fruits...as I sat in my apartment. Alone. Listening to Edith Piaf in my worn Old Navy lounge pants and an oversized t-shirt, having probably just eaten an entire bag of Dove chocolates (fed to myself by myself).

Whoa. CALM DOWN, Jenna. Calm. Down.

Delete, delete, delete.

Then, I actually took a moment to think about Valentine's Day.

More times than not -okay, 95% of the time- I am single on Valentine's Day, so I believe myself to be a bit of an expert when it comes to explaining what the day is like for a singleton. At least a singleton such as myself, anyway.

I love getting to wear pink and red for the day. I enjoy heart-shaped candies. I think boxes of chocolate are just wonderful...I always regret it when I look at the insert at all of the flavors and their respective locations inside the box. The surprise is much more fun!

But I'll be honest here, and I hope my honesty isn't mistaken as being negative or self-pitying. 

As someone who loves holidays, I feel a bit left out of Valentine's Day.

The glum feelings I have on Valentine's Day aren't attributed to being alone or lonely, exactly, but they're instead related to feeling somehow excluded from a celebration. It's a bummer not having a boyfriend to make plans with or exchange gifts between on this day. I always feel like I only get to celebrate Valentine's Day to a certain extent. It's as though I don't have full access to the holiday.

Sure, people say that Valentine's Day is not limited to love of the romantic variety, but let's be real here. Hallmark and Godiva aren't making millions today off people celebrating friendship.

Tonight, I am planning on coming home from work and changing into my most comfortable clothes. I am going to enjoy a nice bottle of red wine along with an array of fancy cheeses. I'm going to watch one of my favorite movies. Right now, I am leaning towards watching both Bridget Jones movies back-to-back or perhaps "Love Actually."

Because at the end of the day, singleton or not, when Hugh Grant states with total confidence, "Love actually is all around"?

I believe him. I totally believe him.

I'm still trying to figure out where my own romantic love is hiding, but I know he is out there somewhere.

And maybe, just maybe, he'll make an appearance before Valentine's Day 2014.

Gosh- maybe he is even BRITISH!*

*Note to God- if this is the case, all of these Valentine's Days spent alone were completely acceptable.