I know, I know. This is supposed to be Throwback Thursday. Due to excuses I’m fabricating in my head, it’s not happening this week. I’m just not in the mood to look through my sixth grade journal and reminisce.

It’s been a while since I’ve gotten serious here, and I’m not really sure why. My head hasn’t been here for a while, I suppose. Work has been busy. I’ve had an actual social life for the last few weeks (don’t worry, couch: I’m about due for a week-long introverted self-huddle). I’ve been reading great books on my new Kindle (The Best American Non-Required Reading, Margaret Atwood’s Positron, and e.e. cumming’s six nonlectures). I’ve been working out (my 5k on Monday night was almost four minutes shorter than last week’s). I’ve been baking. I’ve been cleaning. I’ve been playing my violin (I sort of want to apologize to all of my neighbors because my Bach sounds terrible). I haven’t been getting enough sleep. I’ve gotten into a weird pattern of waking very deliberately each morning around 1 or 2am, walking to my kitchen, pouring a mug of milk, and eating two cookies. I only have two left, so I guess tonight is my last night, so I wonder if it will stop on Friday. I do this in an attempt to get myself back to sleep, but really it’s just an excuse to eat an extra 400 calories. In the morning, I just pretend not to know why there are crumbs in my sheets or why my milk is gone.

Anyway, Valentine’s Day. Before you all freak out, I’ll let you know that I don’t have plans. I mean, I do. Thursday is cross-training, so I’ll be doing 45 minutes of rowing and weights. But romantically-speaking, there are no plans. This is by choice more than circumstance. I was seeing someone for the last few weeks who said he had made plans for us, but it didn’t feel right committing to them. He’s a nice guy, but spending Valentine’s Day together makes things serious, doesn’t it? If a relationship goes from casual to committed, it should happen naturally, not because the calendar dictates.

I had intended to write some meaningful diatribe about Valentine’s Day and how it’s not as big of a deal and people make it out to be, but by even mentioning it I’m participating it the same hoopla I’d be attempting to condemn. When it comes down to it, the pre-packaged and pleasantly arranged tokens of love we’re presented with from December 26 – February 14 make us fall into one of the following categories:

Neither is superior. At some point, each of us will experience love. At another, we’ll feel bitter and jaded. The beauty lies in the fact that we’re capable of experiencing both of these states. With the right attitude, bitterness can  be turned around to be the promise of something better. What that “something” is is for you to decide: a more honest relationship, a more contented sense of self, or a stronger connection to your reality. And love? Whether you’ve been in love or you have yet to experience it, you know that e.e. cummings perfectly captures that sense of blissful isolation that only love produces.

So instead of being focused on whether you’re in love, out of love, done with love, or having fun with love, why not just be content that you’re capable of it?