Sunday, February 14, 2010

February 14, 2010

I should be reading Ragtime right now, for my BIDS class, but I honestly can't keep my Focus on it. The Olympics are on (Go World), I haven't written anything in an incredibly long time, and it's a Sunday and I'm not feeling the greatest from my wipe out of epic proportions at Bristol Mountain on Friday. (I tried to use my right side [lower] as a landing pad and that didn't work out too well.)

And today is also Valentine's Day. Which is great, if you have someone to share it with.

Take, for example, my sister and my brother-in-law. They've been together for about ten years now, three of them as a married duo and have the most beautiful little girl who is two and a half. Valentine's Day is for them, to celebrate the joy they bring to each other's lives and how they will continue to bring that joy to their lives. They also celebrate their daughter, and the joy that she brings, the Little Mayhem Maker.

For me, Valentine's Day serves as another reminder that I'm spending it by myself.

True, I have good friends, some that I love like family, and many of them will say that having a significant other is overrated and unnecessary, but your brain doesn't think that way. When your eyeballs see that girl who opens that pale pink envelope and sees even the tiniest of Hey, hope you have a great day, Happy Valentine's Day and she smiles that smile that you want....your brain says, maybe there's something missing in my life. It shouldn't. Really, it shouldn't, but I think we all know that when we're not supposed to feel something, or think a certain way, it's automatic that we do. It's human nature. And there's a certain happiness that comes from a significant other.

Now, Louise. You're the one who says frequently that you should be comfortable as yourself. That it shouldn't matter. A bit hypocritical are we?

Well, yes, in a way I am.

We all know the differences, on an emotional level, of the people in our lives. When we have a bad day - things just don't work out how they're supposed to, or something inevitably goes wrong - our friends are there for us. And that's great. I love the friends that I have and would probably be slightly crazier than I am without them. Not to mention, I wouldn't have anybody to make midnight Ben and Jerry's runs with, and when you go for a Ben and Jerry's run by yourself, it's a little bit pathetic, honestly. I've done it before, and nothing says, I've had a really bad week so back off, pal like a pint of B&J's, some E.L. Fudge cookies, and a bottle of Martinelli's sparkling cider. And there are times when my girls have been right beside me. They supply the hugs, the tissues, and the It'll get better. You can do this. And bless best friends because we'd all be slobbering messes at least twenty percent of the time without at them. At least, I would be. I'll admit it. Readily.

However, it's quite another to be hugged by a significant other when everything's gone to hell because that's a different kind of safe harbor. It's a set of arms that, on another level emotionally, says You stay right here and I'm not going to let the world in until you feel better. And I'm not going anywhere. You can say all that you want about it being the same, or that the set of arms belonging to friends is better because they're friends, but really, if you've had the opportunity to sample both, it's not the same. It's different. It feels different, and that's what it comes down to. The feeling.

It's actually quite...well, I'm not sure how to classify it, but I kept thinking, on some irrational over-emotional level all this week, that, come Friday, or Saturday, I would find something in my campus mailbox - from a boy - that would be along the lines of I want to be your Valentine. Even if it was anonymous. I keep thinking that somebody's going to be waiting for me to come around a corner and hand me a rose or something and say, You're cute, and I would like to get to know you on a deeper level than just friends.

That has yet to happen. I doubt it ever will. But I can hope. In the back of my mind, the place where the characters for my novel live along with the other ideas that I have for writing interesting things, and the general black hole that is my inner consciousness, this idea, this scenario has life. It is vibrant. Then again, the girl in this scenario is probably a lot stronger than I am, even on my good days. But it's my mind, and I'm entitled to whatever hopes and dreams come spewing out of it, even if they remain only hopes and dreams at the end of the day.

Also, the likely hood of someone waiting for me outside my door is greatly diminished now that they locked our floor door because of our creeper from a couple weeks ago. Still, it's a nice idea to have.

There is no happy medium for somebody on Valentine's Day. There's no place for the single lady without making us feel like utter crap because we don't have somebody that close to us besides our same-gendered friends to spend it with, and the likelihood of a boy crawling out of the woodwork with a rose between his teeth and a smile in his eye is utterly, utterly nothing but a fantasy of the highest order. Life, for the most part, is neither a movie nor a Taylor Swift song, as much as we'd love it to be. My life certainly isn't, and I can probably guarantee that yours isn't, either.

As for how I've spent my day? I tore down the set that was in the theater from the winter show that just finished so they have a clear stage to hold auditions for the spring one, I've done some homework, I've attempted to get through a chunk of Ragtime, and my mother is coming up with some things that I need and we're going to go to dinner. I'll send birthday cards for my sister home with her, as well as hugs for my niece. And then I'll go to physics Teaching Fellows tonight and do my physics homework so I'm not scrambling Tuesday morning at breakfast because I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Am I hoping to see Fizziks boy there? Yes, I am. Am I going to hold my breath? If I do, I might pass out. It'd be great. Then again, the last time that I thought I saw him was on Bristol Mountain and then I epically flailed in the snow. We can discuss later what it means when a girl uses a half-assed scientific experiment to determine whether not said boy likes her by where he sits in relation to her in a class. We can also discuss what this says about said girl's people skills. Boy skills, more correctly. Or, more accurately, lack thereof.

Bottom line: Does Valentine's Day suck for the singles out there? No, not really. It just makes them more acutely aware of the thing they're missing. And everybody adores that reminder.

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"The difference between life and the movies is that a script has to make sense, and life doesn't."

-Joseph L. Mankiewicz