Michaela Lumpert, Campus Carrier news editor
It’s weird how the day celebrating love has turned into a day filled with cynicism. People view the day with hate because consumerism turned it into a day that has been commercialized. This day is also associated with people’s worst memories of rejection and sadness. I understand why Valentine’s Day has a bad rep, but I think it’s time to change that.
I am also a victim to crappy Valentine’s Days. Too many times I have been stood up or just forgotten about. I had been stood up so many times that my mom finally took pity on me and started celebrating the day with my family and me. When I was little we always celebrated with home-made Valentines and cute heart-shaped foods. As the rejections started to pour in year after year, my parents decided to help me make new memories of the holiday.
They decided to turn Valentine’s day weekend into our annual ski trip weekend. So each year, significant other or not, we trek up to Asheville and into the closest ski lodge for a weekend of skiing and heart-shaped food.
Despite my lack of a love life, my parents made the holiday fun. My mom took all the bad and harsh feelings I had for the holiday and helped me make new memories to replace those sad ones. I know the pain of rejection and the hurt never just magically disappears, but the new memories helped me to move on. Why should we spend year after year mad at the world over one day?
The cycle of sadness and self-pity will just continue if you keep treating this day like it’s the worst day ever. My mom is a huge supporter of making new memories. If something doesn’t go our way, my mom makes us do it again, remaking memories that are 100 times better than the old.
This year for Valentine’s day, I challenge you to do that. Turn this day into a fun one, celebrating with loved ones, not necessarily a significant other, just people who mean a lot to you. Depending on how the day goes, I still have my friends over to celebrate, or I just take them skiing with us, to continue the cycle of making new memories.
Shockingly, this is the first year I have a Valentine that’s not my mom. I know, you’re probably thinking, “oh she’s finally happy, that’s why she’s writing an opinion piece in favor of Valentine’s Day.” That’s not the case at all; I have felt like this my whole life.
If you aren’t ready to forgive Valentine’s Day and make new memories, I encourage you to do it with something else in your life. Dwelling on pain and sadness will never help you; it’s more beneficial to move on and make new memories. Take a bad experience you had and redo it; make the memory a happy one rather than another sad one you feel stuck with.