happy valentine's day!

there's a fine line between enjoying a holiday for what it is and being bitter about it because you fail to possess the requirements necessary for enjoying that holiday.

and it's not that i hate valentine's day -it's just that this year, for the first time in a long, long time, i lack the significant other.

and i'm sure, if you ask any english student, there are a million things wrong with that sentence. i, in no way, am suggesting that i am deprived of a valentine's day celebration because i don't have a boyfriend. i feel as if things are more along the lines of...well, this year, valentine's day doesn't feel like anything special because i don't have anyone special to share it with.

make more sense? not really, right?

don't get me wrong. i love being in love. not because it's all flowers and teddy bears. because it's not..but it's probably my second-favourite thing to ice cream, chocolate and cake -and yes, all three of those things belong in a category together.

except lately, i've questioned whether i've ever been in love; you know...true love.

i think that people my age thrive on the idea of having that other half, that special someone...but i don't think that that's true love. and i can't entirely say that i wasn't in love with that idea. nor can i deny that that idea may have distorted my perception of what it meant or felt like to truly be in love.

so love's a tricky thing. and today isn't really a day of much, if any, significance to me this year. it's like non-Christians who don't celebrate Christmas. for them, the 25th of december is just another day of the year.

and i suppose that ultimately each person derives meaning and significance from their understanding of the common conventions of the culture or social atmosphere in which they're immersed.

and i just don't know how to derive my meanings and significances yet.