This Valentine’s Day, I am single. It is not something that I am thrilled about. There will most definitely be moments of pain on Valentine’s Day where I yearn for a big spoon or the kind words of a significant other. However, those moments of pain will also be moments of growth.
Right now, my friends jokingly call me “single Bella.” It began when our friend, who, I must admit, is a bit tone-deaf, coined the term “single Bella” hours after my first college boyfriend apparently broke my heart. At that moment, I could barely hold back the tears. Now, I jokingly call myself single Bella as I dance with my friends to my “hot girl hours” playlist and study until the ungodly hours of the night as the New York City noises slowly fade into the loan siren and the stray horn.
For the past two years and a half years, I have been in and out of relationships. I loved the comfort of having a significant other. They were each my best friend for a moment in time. However, I had seemed to have forgotten how to live for myself. So, in the rough weeks of November, I crawled out of the relationship hole and blossomed as a single Bella.
This Bella is happier than she has been in months. She recognizes her beauty for what it means to her. She recognizes her worth only in terms of how much she values herself. She puts her happiness first because if she does not do so, no one else will. She goes out in the street to buy herself a bacon, egg, and cheese, shaming herself for admiring her reflection only with the judgment of Narcissus in her brain.
It is with this power that I will channel happiness on Valentine’s Day. I will revel in the fact that I am single, loving myself, my friends, and my family. I will celebrate Galentine’s Day with my social bubble and take cute pictures, living a life that only lets in the happiness and wrings out the sadness and the stress with hugs and cookies. At the end of the day, Valentine’s Day is just capitalism’s attempt at commodifying love, right?
If you are single, I encourage you to channel this power. Live life for yourself. If the right person comes along, do not shun them. I will gladly be in another relationship when the right person comes along. However, for the rest of my life, I will continue to channel the happiness, power, and beauty of single Bella. Single Bella is the real Bella and that is why I am happy to be single this Valentine’s Day. I am happy because I have found her. I challenge you to find yours.