It's recently occurred to me that as a third-century church father, St. Valentine was probably celibate. Celibate, as in voluntarily, perpetually single.
That and the lack of evidence that Valentine even cared about other peoples' romance made me wonder how the hell this day got hijacked by our happily paired-off friends. It's really quite properly our day, as far as I can tell. (Not that we won't share-- especially cause we know how it feels to not be shared with!)
As unhealthy and self-pitying as they often are, I understand the complaints about singleness underrepresentation on Valentine's feast day. Even as a very happily single person, each Valentine's for the past several years has been a time marker for me, an 'Oh, I am not looking at this day from the other side of the divide yet. And I might not, ever."
And I don't mean that to be cynical. I just don't believe the modern narrative that singleness is a curse to be gotten rid of as quickly as possible. In my work at a retirement community, I've met many amazing, fulfilled life champions who have never been married, and a good handful who met and married their first loves in the retirement community after age 60. And I think that's beautiful. I wouldn't mind it in the slightest.
There's a very vivid happiness in this space of not-needing, of being free to invest in community in so many multi-faceted ways, of living and making decisions exclusively by God's beckonings. As a culture, we don't celebrate that enough. So let's start. The reason this is a day of Couple's cheeze and Single's griping is that we haven't joined the celebration.
Today's our day, single people. We're only as alone as we decide to be. Let's choose community. Let's choose connection. Let's choose love.
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