How do we find love outside a day so saturated with heightened emotions and expectations?
“I love you so much,” “What are you doing tonight?” Ready-to-please hands swipe the last bouquets from local florists; Trader Joe’s flower supply ran dry days ago. It’s Valentines in Winston-Salem.
My date proudly disclosed that he reserved our table weeks in advance. Securing spots at Mozelle’s, Spring House, Quanto Basta or Cibo’s felt like hitting the jackpot. The meal was good, the conversation great, and the post-game… Well, let’s just say it flew off the handle. But now, just a few days later, I find myself wondering: Where did all the good feelings on campus go?
The lead-up to Valentine’s Day felt like the emotional swell in an Erik Satie composition. Beating hearts were in constant collision, electricity hijacked the air and pulled us together. It was as though a universal internal stream of consciousness was compelling us all to pour out protestations of love and cuddle with our shnookums.
Strangers smiled more, friends lingered in conversations with dreamy expressions, and couples — even the ones who usually have bees in their bonnets — were suspended in a kind of sweet space, whirling with magic and harmony. Confessions of our feelings, planning extravagant dates, and embracing our inner romantics became our nature. And then, as swiftly as it arrived, the mood dissolved come Feb. 15.
I have taken it upon myself to scrutinize this rapid and jarring rise and fall of fervent affection. Does Valentine’s Day reflect an organic expression of our love in abundance or is the guise of abundance merely tacking itself on for a few days in February? The answer likely lies somewhere en route between functional profit margins and basic tenets of social psychology.
Valentine’s Day succeeds because its expectations are simple. We are tasked with the singular responsibility to love in excess – for one day exclusively. The temporal and fleeting quality of these expectations gives us a very convenient deadline to pen out a heartfelt letter or two and set aside a few fully present hours for our love. This ritualized outpouring feels good precisely because it’s framed as temporary and exceptional. But if love feels so good on Feb. 14, why can’t we sustain the good feelings year-round?
Why don’t we set daily expectations to be present, generous and kind to those we cherish?
Perhaps we’re afflicted with laziness. Perhaps we don’t want to wear ourselves out. Perhaps we haven’t figured out how to sustain true love and affection without the labyrinth of commercialized rituals to distract us from true feelings. Whatever the reason, our collective emotional reconfiguration each February reveals less about love itself and more about our societal reliance on external prompts to feel emotions deeply.
As Valentine’s goods are discounted on lonely supermarket shelves, we might begin to think about changing our approach. Love has no season. It’s not confined to any time or space, to no ruby bouquets or candles in the dark. If we can rewire our minds to love with such intensity for a single day, there is no reason we can’t mold ourselves to love with greater consistency, beyond the clock of the cherubic Roman God.
Perhaps we just want the adrenaline rush of a good reservation chase and finding a cute dress to wear, or a well-timed kiss on Trade Street. Nonetheless, it’s worthwhile to remember: that every fraction of creation has its invisible counterpart. Go nurture yours.
