Living With An Open Heart On Valentine's Day
Valentine’s Day…
If you’re like me then this holiday has always been a weird one—single or not.
While this year I had the most amazing valentine, I have to say that for most of the years in my life I’ve often gone without one.
Me in college… Single and ready for love
In my teen years and early 20s, I can remember how getting through this holiday used to really sting. As a recovering perfectionist, one of the things that used to hurt the most about celebrating Valentine’s Day was this sweltering feeling of inadequacy and incapability. It was this feeling of looking like a lonely loser to everyone else in my life.
I hate being told I can’t accomplish something. For a long time I resisted the idea of rewriting my reality, and celebrating this day with friends and family because it felt like a cop out. I either wanted a significant other or to be left alone; moody and depressed about why my weight meant that I was never going to be loved.
Yet, the most complicated thing about love for determined people like me is coming to terms with the fact that love isn’t something to “accomplish”— at least not real love. As I’ve come to learn, real love is not something you can put on your to-do list or map out a five-year plan for.
It also isn’t something that should be reserved and celebrated with one particular person, and I have a special woman in my life that I deeply appreciate for helping me to see that.
You’ll see me type this over and over again because of how important it is, but how seldom people bother to heed the advice; the people you keep close to you and their outlook on life is so critical when it comes to changing your own self-perceptions and circumstances.
Me and my mom at my college graduation
Me and my best friend, Dee in high school
My open heart necklace
I remember one year in high school over Valentine's Day weekend as my mom was dropping me back off to boarding school, she gave me one of the most treasured gifts of my life.
“What’s this?” I asked as she handed me a small red book and a jewelry box.
“Open Heart,” the title of the book read. And inside the jewelry box was a beautiful key shaped necklace with an open heart symbol at the center.
While I don’t remember what she said verbatim, I do remember that she got it for me because she knew how hard being single was for me. So, she wanted to instill in me an open heart approach to life. She was actually the first person to expand my beliefs on what it meant to have a soulmate and who could qualify for the spot.
She said that when it comes to the love that we have in our lives, it’s not only important to celebrate romantic love, but also the love of our friends and the people in our community who help us to be our best selves every day. She said that sure, my soulmate could be a boyfriend, but that it could also be my best friend—that it was really about the love and connection I had with the person over the romance.
Like all mother-daughter relationships, the one I have with my mom is not perfect. We bicker, sometimes argue, and everything in between. But I can’t lie. Somehow, in some mom spidey-sense kind of way, she always knows what to say in hard times (how she says it depends on the day—real talk, but again, not perfect. I acknowledge this, lol).
So, as I celebrated Valentine’s day this year, even with a bae, I made sure to stay true to this open heart philosophy that my mom instilled in me many years before.
Click through to see more photos
I made sure to start my day cherishing the most important love that anyone can have in their lives—self-love. I have recently gotten into doing yoga because of this amazing discount I got for YogaWorks as part of a promotion they did with Pressed Juicery last year. Yoga has been one of my favorite ways to get more in touch with myself, and to feel more grounded throughout the day. FYI—Melanie Lora Meltzer has the most calming and reassuring presence. I highly recommend her videos if you ever try it.
Then I read a meditation excerpt from this amazing new book I’m reading by Agapi Stassinopoulos called Wake Up To The Joy Of You that I received as a gift for speaking at BlogHer a few years ago. I have always been super excited to start reading this book because Agapi actually did a guided meditation that year at BlogHer that truly took me out of this world, and I really remembered enjoying her presence.
I can’t even tell you how serendipitous it was to face the first chapter, “Are You A People Fixer?,” which was all about getting you to honor the fact that you can’t change others, but you can learn to honor that your energy is precious and should not be shared with just anyone.
I had a quick snack at Cafe 101 with my favorite boss queens, Becky and Vanessa (@pinchofbrownsugar),where they had the most divine sweet potato fries. Vanessa also surprised us with roses!
“Your energy is precious and should not be shared with just anyone.”
Me in 2015 wearing the open heart necklace
Then bae came over. After surprising him with his favorite candy and a card filled with the promise of a relaxing and romantic hot stone couple’s massage, he whisked me away to Pasadena where we had a night out on the town. We enjoyed the beautiful flowers at the Arlington Garden, amazing Indian/Mongolian food and my real true love (don’t tell him lol), 21 Choices frozen yogurt.
But caught up in the spirit of the holiday we decided to turn it into a Valentine’s Day weekend where we also snuggled up to watch the quintessential interracial love story movie, Something New. But I said that if he ever asked to see my “real” hair, I’d just stop shaving. Is underarm hair real enough for you, society?
We also watched Love & Basketball, went to the California African-American Museum, had delicious pho, saw a really dope play called Gifted by Bob Derosa, and all in all had a very fun, intimate, and (unintentionally) hella black Valentine’s Day.
To close, I will leave you with this quote by Rob Reiner—
“Ultimately all you can do is fix yourself. And that’s a lot. Because if you can fix yourself, it has a ripple effect.”
While my mom introduced me to the concept of living life with an open heart when I was 16, it took me years before I could actually do it because of how hard it can be to make change in our lives—especially our perceptions of the world and the things we think we should have by a certain age.
So many of us are lead to believe, just like I had, that your life only has meaning when you’re in a romantic relationship. Or the only way to experience a real and satisfying love is when we are in a romantic relationship. But the greatest lesson I’ve learned through my mom’s open heart message is that the quality of your love life (romantic or not) is dependent upon the ways you choose to love yourself and your circumstances. If you allow yourself to be open to all the ways in which you can experience love— and that means self-love as well, it can have a ripple effect that is not only likely to improve other areas of your life, but you’ll also be much more likely to live a satisfying and self-confident life.
“The people you keep close to you and their outlook on life is so critical when it comes to changing your own self-perceptions and circumstances.”
So, I challenge you this Valentine’s Day, single or not, to make sure that you not only celebrate your significant other/friends/family, but to also extend that same love and appreciation to yourself as well.
Eat a meal that feels either spiritually or nutritionally valuable to you.
Turn off your alarm clock, and wake up when your body feels rested and ready.
Sit in bed and just let your mind wander about the possibilities of your day.
Gather up the people who make you feel like the Boss Queen you are for a Zoom happy hour.
Practice the “spend and send” method where you focus on spending time today with people who make you feel your best, and send texts to the rest.
Celebrating the love I have with my boyfriend was very special to me that day, but thanks to the love and guidance of my mother, I have learned how to open my heart to all types of love that can be celebrated on this day.
How did you celebrate love this Valentine’s Day? Let me know on social (@DayshaVeronica) or down in the comments!
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