Valentine’s Day has never been one of my favorite holidays. It has always been about waiting.
In elementary school, I waited for a secret admirer’s special valentine to magically appear on my desk while I was at recess. It didn’t. In high school, I waited outside the weight room for my long-time crush to emerge in his sweaty, muscular glory and sweep me off my feet. As he carried me through the fluorescent-lit halls of our public school, he would look deep into my eyes and say “Will you be my Valentine, babe?” He didn’t.
While Valentine’s Day was a constant romantic disappointment year after year, I never became one of those bitter people who hated Valentine’s Day. I never referred to it as “singles awareness day” or “hallmark holiday.” I loved seeing women get flowers. I loved seeing couples hold hands and grin at each other, stars in their eyes. I loved seeing it because I thought “someday that will be me.”
I waited, waited, and waited. Sure, there were times I had a boyfriend on Valentine’s Day, but it always felt phony. There was that one time my boyfriend made a huge heart out of candles in the middle of the street outside of my bedroom window at 2 am- romantic, right? If only it had been enough to compensate for his continuous verbal abuse and jealous fits of rage. It just never felt right.
But then something happened. I guess the Valentine Gods and maybe Cupid himself decided I had waited long enough. In 2008 I went on a Valentine’s Date that ended in an allergic reaction, cramps, and a grand finale of diarrhea, but the weird thing? It felt right. Well, the explosive diarrhea didn’t feel right, but the boy finally did.
The boy, 2008
He took care of me, he made me laugh, he held my hair back while I crapped my brains out. Okay, the last part isn’t true, but he handled the delicate situation of “new girlfriend with digestive emergency” like a champ. Seriously, he should get an award.
Since then, every Valentine’s Day for me has been full of excitement. Not because the boy showers me with 20-dozen roses or writes me love poems, but because I can be myself, and we can just be, and we are in love. I can eat so much for our Valentine’s dinner that I literally cry on the stairs in pain. And he takes the time to sneak in photos before bundling me up and making me “walk it out” around the neighborhood in 35 degree weather.
Valentine’s Day, 2012
He writes me cards that say things like “I cant wait to spend the rest of my life with you, as long as our kids get my immune system we’ll be golden.” He builds me towers of frosted flakes to support my cereal binge eating habits and I give him non-romantic, maybe slightly creepy (but always creative) Valentine’s cards.
I waited for 20 years to find a Valentine worth sitting still for. Some people wait less time, some people wait a lot longer. But don’t lose hope and don’t settle, because when the wait is finally over, every single Valentine’s Day spent with your friends, roommate, dog, or even your half-dead goldfish (true story) feels worth it.
(And if you spend the rest of your life celebrating your Valentine’s Days with a canine companion or a feline friend, you can still consider yourself lucky. That’s unconditional love and certainly better than being in an unsatisfying, unfulfilling relationship. Tip: Just try to avoid spending VDay with a half-dead fish. Not satisfying.)
My Valentine
The Other Courtney 
Loved this post….so sweet. I am happy you found true love : ) Great pics and those cards are so funny!
Ok….that has GOT to be one of THE BEST valentines day sentiments. I love that you are in love. And that the two of you just fit.
This comment is a couple days late…but I am hoping you are still celebrating with him. Yahhhhh you Courtney *smiles*
Oh thank you, Katie! Your kind words mean a lot to me! We do fit, it just works. Even after 5 years, it just feels right and easy.
I celebrate every day with him, not just Valentine’s Day so you are correct!! I hope you had a great Valentine’s Day and are having a good week!
Umm, adorable!
I used to hate Valentine’s Day growing up. Finding the perfect message to write into class cards for the boys I loooooooved was so stressful. I didn’t want them to know that I like “liked” them, but I also wanted to send a subliminal mind message without being creepy. Should have taken a page out of your book and just super-imposed our faces, together, into romantical settings. Duh.
I hear ya! I was a nervous wreck on Valentine’s Day as a kid. I would go home thinking “all the boys that have crushes on me were just too nervous to tell me, that MUST be it!” hahaha…
Yes, the pasting the faces on happy couples is a solid way to go. I mean, there’s definitely nothing creepy about giving that to a guy you barely know. I think ANY guy would be flattered!
CUTE alert. Good for you!! I hear you about being in a relationship on Valentine’s day but it not feeling right. This was my first Valentine’s day as a single girl and it was better than ANY of my “taken” Valentine’s days!!! Of course it would have been nice to celebrate, but I’d rather wait like you than settle for a l0o0o0oser.
xoxo
Thank you!! I’m SO glad that you had a good single Valentine’s Day, they can definitely top VDay’s with a loser. It’s a good excuse to spoil yourself rotten 🙂 I hope you at least bought yourself some chocolate and ate it guilt-free?
That valentine card is hilarious!!! Tell Isaac I want a homemade card someday okay!?! Thanks!
Haha okay but that’s the card I made for him! Sooooo do you want one from me or him? 🙂
LOVE this post. Pretty similar to my life situation, and I couldn’t agree more!
Thank you! I’m happy to hear your situation is similar, it must mean you are happy 😀
You two are adorable and it’s wonderful that you’ve found each other and have such a great, loving, and fun relationship (And that you’re getting married next month!!!) Wow I also binge on cereal – the past few days every evening have involved me stuffing my face with some version of Chex. If you, me, and Amanda ever meet in one place, we just need huge bowls of cereal and we’ll be happy. Anyway you and Isaac are very lucky to have each other and have many more Valentine’s days together!
Thanks girl! I feel so blessed to be in a relationship that is so much fun. Obviously we have our struggles like everyone does, but it’s still fun most days. Yep 3 weeks till wedding time, INSANE how fast it is approaching!!!
HAHA I love that you and Amanda are cereal bingers too- Rice Chex used to be my poison. Raisin Bran Crunch is another one, and Koala Crisp is OMG so good. I actually seriously wanted to open a restaurant that is a GIANT cereal bar. There would be hundreds of cereal dispensers and a ton of different milk options (whole, 2%, 1%, skim, almond, chocolate, soy, coconut, rice, etc). Ummm should we be business partners?? I’m thinking so.
Aw you two are the CUTEST! I’m glad you found each other 🙂 I love the card and the gift of frosted flakes. I too binge on cereal. Dangerous habit!
Thank you! 🙂 I’m so happy we found each other too. It was SO random meeting on an island in the Florida Keys- I can’t believe what it turned into.
Cereal is SO dangerous, especially the sugary ones. I am not letting myself eat any of my Frosted Flakes Pyramid until I get back from the honeymoon haha, just to be safe. Eczema hates sugary cereal- it’s just so unfair! What is your favorite binge cereal?
CINNAMON RICE CHEX. OMG. Just discovered it and can’t even keep it in the house anymore. But honestly, I’ll binge on anything – I hate it. Even the plain rice chex! Good idea to avoid it until after the honeymoon!
UGH I used to be so obsessed with all the Chex too until the whole Vitamin E allergy appeared a few years ago. They put mixed tocopherols in all their cereals- boo!!!! Why don’t you take one for the team and eat a few extra boxes for me?? 😀
Sooo I’m a major binge eater too and I am now wondering if it is because of our allergies. Like, we miss out on a lot of food so when we get a good one we love, we eat it until we hate ourselves. That seems to be my MO. I am curious now if other allergy people are the same way. I’d bet they are!
I have *always* thought that…. that because of how restricted we are, it causes us to binge. Because like, with eating disorders, that’s often related. Even with DIETING it’s related. The more you restrict, the more you end up binging later. And sometimes I’m like “well this is all I can eat so I might as well eat it ALLLLL” like I will literally eat an entire box of cereal in one day. This morning, I ate 16 Vanilla Meringues! 16!!! I know that would kill you, but luckily I can eat eggs. It disgusts me. When my skin is BAD though, I’m more likely to eat very little because it’s one thing I feel I can control. Are you the same way, with cycles?
hahahaahah oh my word, yes I’m the exact same way and I love hearing you are too. I need to tell Isaac I’m not the only one!! He is amazed at how I can put away food. Awhile ago I ate an entire family sized container of oreos in 2 days. I definitely eat entire boxes of cereal in 1 day too! And having a cake in the house I’m not allergic to? Forget about it. I eat it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and in between. NOT GOOD. But now that I think about it, I binge on healthy food too. Baby carrots, hummus, broccoli, oatmeal, and especially zucchini. When I was vegan I was eating between 3 and 6 zucchini’s EVERY DAY.
16 meringues, hahahah!!!! ATTA GIRL! Makes me proud.
Yes, I definitely have cycles. I can’t wait to be out of this cycle now where I literally don’t want to eat anything. If I could hookup a feeding tube and an IV to my body I would. I know that once everything is better, I’ll go back to eating more normally.
I was joking with someone yesterday (even though eating disorders are obviously not funny at all) that I’m halfway to being bulimic! I’ve got the binging thing down pat. Thankfully, I will never ever throw up. I love my food way too much 😀
I am so glad we found each other lol. We are allergy-eczema-asthma-everythingawful soul mates. I am absolutely phobic of throwing up, but in the past, I’ve definitely “punished” myself through way excessive exercise after binging like that. I LOVE food so much. It’s crazy to think this could ALL go back to food allergies and how restricted we feel in other ways. I definitely want to know if other people are like this too! Interesting topic for a blog post.
And cake, omg. Actually, forget the cake. I only care about the frosting! But anything “bad” never lasts in my house longer than a day. I hate it but can’t stop it! LOL. And I definitely binge on healthy things too, but not nearly as much as I do unhealthy things. Celiac stopped my binging for a while, but ugh, now I’m eating all this unhealthy processed food that I DON’T WANT to be eating!
I’m just like you two!! (can I join the chronic disease binger soulmate train, haha??) I completely binged on Cinnamon Chex yesterday too (I’m supposed to be following the candida diet meaning zero sugar, but I finally cracked). Then today I still had a mad sugar craving (it was that time of the month, so I was powerless in the face of hormones LOL) so I ate about 10 chewy candies at work then tried to distract myself with raw vegetables instead. 🙂
Hahaha nice!!! Man, now I feel like I have my very own binging support group! Perfect. Although we’d probably just encourage each other to keep binging instead of stopping. We can share good binge foods with each other, yesssss!!!
Yay!! I’m glad the wait is over! 🙂 And I love the way you thought “someday that will be me” when you saw other people getting flowers on Valentines day. What an awesome way to look at it…and it turned out to be true! 🙂
Thank you, me too!! I always tried to stay optimistic about it. I just can’t stand it when people are single so they hate everyone who is in a relationship. I get it, it sucks being alone on Valentine’s Day but there are SO many people who you can show love to on VDay. It’s not just about a romantic relationship in my opinion. I really believe that “thoughts become things” and I believe in the power of positive thinking, so I think it worked out this way for a reason. I hope YOU had an amazing Vday and felt loved by those close to you!!