Valentine’s Day has always been a thing. It is one of the anticipated dates of the year, where people either get excited to be with their special someone, or people get upset because they’ve got no one to spend it with. But, what if you don’t fall between those categories because you hold expectations for that day to finally happen? So you wait.
You wait for someone steady enough to finally feel comfortable spending Valentine’s Day with them. And then, you start thinking and fall asleep on ideas for what to do, what to say, what to wear, what to get.
“Would chocolates be too much?”
“I don’t wanna be cliché…”
You roll your eyes because you’re crossing the Walgreens section and you can already see the red plaguing the aisles. Red hearts, red bears, red cups, red everything. But you want it to be special. You want it to at least be unique and memorable. And it’s not setting yourself up for disaster, it’s just simply yearning for one little, mundane celebration of “love and friendship” (though we all know this Holiday is mainly for couples). So you grab the box of chocolates and the big red teddy bear because, why the hell not? Next thing you know you’re planning outfits and wondering if your underwear should match. Do you go for the classic red? Or try something different? But what do you know about different? You’ve never done this! Your gut says “wear whatever you feel good in” and so, you do.
Yet, no matter how put together you feel on the outside, there’s this crippling anxiety threatening to take over because now you don’t know what to expect. What are you going to eat? What are you going to say? What if the conversation doesn’t go anywhere? Will it be awkward? What if you want to leave?
At this point you just wanna get it over with. You want to get there and eat and leave.
And then the night rolls by… It’s a whirlwind of laughter and comfortable silences. You enjoy their company and you cannot stop staring at the beautiful person in front of you. You love the way their eyes lit up when they talk. You love the way they hold their fork and dig into the plate you both agreed to get, just so you could try it, too. That made you feel something. Something good, calming and… Okay.
Words flow and so does the time. Now you’re walking back to the car, hand in hand, reviving the butterflies that wanted to burst out of your stomach hours before. Difference is, now you let them, because those butterflies are what make that good night kiss the seal on the perfect Valentine’s Day.
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