There are a lot of people out there celebrating St. Valentine’s Day today sending all the flowers and chocolate they can find to their loved ones.

But did you know that “Young women would line up for the men to hit them,” because “they believed this would make them fertile”? I found an article by NPR writer Arnie Seipel The dark origins of Valentine’s Day. He explains how it all began. Go read it!

The Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia where they would get drunk and while naked beat women. They would use the skin of a goat and a dog they would sacrifice and beat them. These women thought that they were doing something to help them have a family. After this ritual, they would have a matchmaking lottery where men would draw the name of a woman from a jar. They would basically hang out until the festival was over or for more if they were an actual match.

I am sure that some humans may think this may have been “fun”, but I am not so sure of it. When I was younger and only watched Rom-Coms where the girl always got the guy, I thought that love would feel that way one day. Then I found out soon that it didn’t feel that way. I wasn’t into that “love” from the movies. That type of love wasn’t fun and it wasn’t always real.

In my life I’ve had a few lovers, some exciting, some not so much, and some I thought I loved, and then found out I didn’t. I don’t think that I would have been able to have been in “love” with any of them. Because I was in love with the idea of what a relationship could be like. What I was shown on TV and what I imagined it would be like in my imagination went further than what a relationship I lived ever did.

But one day, I had sworn that I would never get married again, and soon after enrolled to get my bachelor’s and instead I met my now husband of (soon to be) 13 years. That would be a story I write about later. I may call it, “How I met an Aquarian”.

So in honor of the good and the bad that today brings, know that love comes from a place deep inside where when you show or give it to someone, it should be selfless. It is not something that is returned, if it is, then great. Celebrate that, but when it is not, know that the point of view of others is not something that can be easily persuaded. Sometimes it can and sometimes it just won’t budge. But that shouldn’t turn you off from one day finding a person that shares your likes and dislikes. Someone that makes you laugh. Someone that tells you stories and teaches you things you never knew about.

One day someone will be yours to give and show love. In the meantime, show this love to yourself. You deserve to take yourself out to a movie and dinner. Go buy yourself those flowers, Miley sings about. You may just learn a few more things about yourself.

Xoxo

-CP