By Kurana Doobay
Hey, I’m Kurana! So you can get to know me, I’ll offer up three facts about myself. I’m 20 years old, I’m a single girl and I love Valentine’s Day. I love love and I believe it deserves to be celebrated. I mean, be so real, what’s not to love about love!? Stop rolling your eyes, calling me crazy in your head, groaning about how single you are, telling me I’m a cog in the capitalist system AND DON’T STOP READING!
Perhaps it’s in my nature. Translated from Sanskrit, my name literally means compassion, so maybe I was made to love. But regardless of what’s in my nature, there’s nothing that feels better than saying “I love you,” and hearing “I love you” back. Don’t lie to yourself and say that isn’t true. You aren’t a robot, you’re a person.
And please don’t tell me, “You don’t need a designated day to celebrate love, just do it everyday.” Because I know and I do. But lucky for me, there is a designated day, and I will use it to my advantage. I have an entire day to be obnoxiously sappy, cheesy and mushy about everything and anything I want. I can tell everyone (that I love) I love them and they can’t be weird about it. Valentine’s Day is a day to SHARE in love, so if you aren’t doing it with me, you don't get it and you’re doing it wrong!
And shut up about Valentine's Day being a capitalist holiday. When has capitalism ever been cuter than a witty teddy bear, prettier than a bouquet of fresh cut roses, more thoughtful than a card with handwritten confessions of love or as grand as a public display of affection by a cute couple? This “capitalist” holiday transforms the drugstore from a sad, ugly, depressing place of cough medicine and tampons into a wonderland of heart-shaped candies and boxes of chocolates right next to an endless assortment of cheeky greeting cards that play music when you open them.
If you are in a relationship and do have a Valentine but still hate Valentine’s Day because you feel like there are too many high expectations, and you’re feeling too much pressure to make it perfect, it doesn’t have to be. Remind yourself that your partner is with you for you, not for what you gift them on Valentine’s Day. If your partner is the right partner for you, your love is enough.
If you’re single, you might tell me that it’s just an annoying reminder of the fact that you’re single. Reminder? Yes. Annoying? Absolutely not! YOU’RE SINGLE! What’s better than being in college and being single? Quite literally nothing. You can do whatever you want, whenever you want with no obligation to anybody or any responsibility of caring for someone else’s needs. All you’re responsible for is your grades, your money and your peace. Go out, stay home, have a Galentine’s or some kind of Valentine’s Day version of a Secret Santa with your friends. You can do something fun like make candy grams and give them out to your friends, someone you have a crush on, random people in the UC or even a professor. You can even do absolutely nothing. You can be the person to make someone else’s Valentine’s Day feel special and they’ll gift you with bright eyes, a smile and a giggle and maybe even a hug in return. Then give yourself a gift because the best gift you’ll ever receive is any one you give yourself!
You can hate Valentine’s Day all you want, I don’t care. Just please don’t be annoying and ruin it for me. But think about it; what’s not to love about love? We are so lucky to be human beings with hearts that weren’t only made to pump blood, but radiate love. Valentine’s Day or not, we can all use a little reminder that life is nothing, without love. At the end of the day, we can always use a little (or a lot) more of it.