The month of love

As February comes to an end, so does the month of love, the month that brings a lot of people, a lot of joy and happiness, the month when quite a large population also realises that they want to be loved like in the movies, and also the month where people who are surrounded by people who cherish them and whom they cherish still feel alone. 

In my teenage years, I didn't really date, I have spent many Valentine's days with my girls, my parents, and sometimes just by myself as well, and don't worry, I don't feel bad about it at all. As a teenager somehow I felt the pressure was more on the relationships you have with your boyfriend/girlfriend but I very vividly remember what my tuition teacher told me when I was in 6th grade about how she had been celebrating Valentine's Day with her friends until she moved to a different city and lost touch :( She was probably the first person to introduce me to the concept of now what we call Galentine's. Essentially, what she wanted to put across was that Valentine's Day is meant to share the love you have with the people you care about. 

Even before this month begins there is just so much pressure that builds up, all the companies aggressively start marketing their valentines Day products, and the whole one week of February is just days where you are supposed to do something for your partner, and don't get me wrong, none of this is bad, but maybe it's primarily a little too much focussed on one kind of love and maybe that's what doesn't sit right with me. I can see it changing over the years, where at least the people I follow and my friends have either changed such that they don't put that pressure on themselves or encourage others to have a partner during that time of the year. I love this about the internet, it's just that if you ignore enough of the Valentine's marketing, which is not necessarily bad because there are some great discounts, you can go ahead and gift yourself, anyways what I was getting at is you start attracting recommendations of people and companies who are embracing love in all it's beautiful and ugly and varied ways (great recommendation algorithms xD).

I don't really have any aim with this blog, I am just blurting out thoughts as they come along and my feelings about this month as a whole and some other related things, so if you were wondering I am getting somewhere with all of this. I don't think I am but pick and choose as you read along, maybe you might find something that resonates with you. 

This year I had one of the best Valentine's days because I got to celebrate it with so many young kids I got a chance to mentor alongside some of my colleagues. This highlighted the importance of kindness and instilled so much gratitude. I couldn't be happier, to be able to do something in a way selfless because it had no personal gain, but if I'm being honest it was probably selfish because of the amount of joy I felt after that just filled me with so much energy to something like this more often to feel that way again. It always doesn't have to be volunteering, but as I mentioned there are so many ways of showing your love and care and this was one of them. Similarly, doing small acts of kindness, more frequently could also have a similar effect and I hope I can do it more often!

So as we were on the topic of love, over the past few years I think one major thing I have been working on is being comfortable with my own company and loving myself enough. It's a journey, every time I think I am there, I am really still very far away. I don't really struggle with my own company honestly, but sometimes if I am really low I tend to not talk to people which is the worst possible thing I could do because it comes from a place that I am taking away from someone's precious time in a day talking about my problems. But a few years ago that really changed, I think it was all about finding the right people to surround yourself with. The people who love you for you, who judge you but to your face and guide you, stop you from making dumb decisions, make dumb decisions with you sometimes, etc. etc. and I don't think anything can replace that. At least at the moment, I don't know anything for sure, your high school partner might still be your partner and for many, they must have already had 4 or 5 serious relationships. People change, people evolve, and that causes people to drift apart. Sometimes drifting apart is good, maybe you just want to attract different energy, but most times it really hurts, it hurts because in today's busy world, we barely have time to catch up with all the people we love and care for, and unknowingly we drift apart and move on with our lives. So at the end of the day, adulting just underlines the importance of loving yourself and having that one small core group you keep up with time to time because life truly moves faster than you think it does.

This month of love really emphasised the importance of being okay with being alone but at the same time remember that we all need someone at the end of the day (I don't mean a partner), having friends and family to share your thoughts with. We as humans I feel have a lot of love to give to this world, and it can be in any form, an act of service, some kindness, or bringing a smile to someone's face knowingly or unknowingly, they are all some form of love. Love doesn't need to be extravagant, you don't have to move worlds to be able to show love, I know romantic love is shown in movies and the poets would say otherwise. Finally I would like to end it with a quote by William Shakespeare “Love all, trust a few, Do wrong to none”, it's a leap year so an extra day in the year to spread some love <3

And as someone on the internet said, and this applies to every relationship

“We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness—and call it love—true love.” ~Robert Fulghum