VALENTINE'S DAY - Is Cupid the Gangsta of Love?

IF YOU REALLY LOVE ME - From my Pop Culture Art at my website. Available as archival prints and giclees on canvas in various sizes

Valentine's Day. The day of romance that will live in infamy. This is the day the merchandisers have made unholy. It is the day they have exploited to sell product. It is the day of libidinous lovers and trembling twosomes. It is also the day that can make you feel unloved, unwanted and undesired if you are not half of a couple.

Starting in grade school we have been conditioned to measure how loved we are by how many valentines we got in our pretty little red and white shoe boxes that we decorated up with construction paper hearts and fat little angels bearing bows and arrows. Heaven forbid if you were not "popular", if you were weird looking, fat, or different. Your little box would be sadly empty, echoing with the evidence of your lack of friends, your unlovable personality. Those empty boxes would leave scars that were reopened every 14th of February for many lonely souls. Those chubby little cupids floating into our lives on the day of St. Valentine weren't our friends, they were the gangsters of love! Shooting arrows into our self esteem they left us with our hopes of undying devotion bleeding on the pavement!

In today's world Valentine's day is a looming calendar event where women fret if they do not have a date, men cringe as they attempt to match the proper gift to the level of the relationship, candy stores celebrate in advance the swelling of their cash registers and restaurants scurry to festoon their decor with the traditional hearts and flowers of romantic love. The card racks in every drugstore and stationary store become drenched in red and pink, candies are dipped in red, pink and white and the world gets painted with the colors of love. Oh, sweet mystery of life you make me want to gag.

Enough already! Somebody ground that flying little fat toddler of fertility! Spare me the images of lovers entwined, candles aglow and pretentious proposals of matrimony! Hand me some blinders to block the glare of all the shades of red that assault my eyes! Give me a freaking break from the barrage of reminders screaming at me that yet another year has come and I am a woman alone!

Because I don't care anymore. I no longer feel the need to be "half of a whole". I am whole within myself. I am not a lesser woman because I don't "have" a man. I am single by choice, not by default. I do not wish to define myself as the mate of someone. I am someone in my own right. So, get off my back, quit trying to find me a man and stop trying to fix me. There's nothing wrong with me. I am fine. I am complete. I am happy. I love who I am. I am loved!

You know, I think I'll send myself some candy and a Valentine!

(P.S. Celebrate your own wonderful self on Valentine's Day with my newest martini from The Martini Diva - The Chocolate Covered Strawberry Martini and stop by my Pop Culture Blog for my thoughts on those little candy hearts with sayings on them!)