On February 14th Holidays

I’m not the right person to ask, about relationships, love, romanticism, families or anything else of the sort.

I’ve never had a relationship that survived, I’m not built for romance, my concept of love wildly different from what the rest of the world thinks is OK and my family life is my family life, not for anybody else to use as a bridgemark.

And yet, people ask me for advice. Apparently I give good advice to everybody not myself. But: I have mixed feelings about this day.

February 14th, the day Valentines Day is celebrated in America, is a societal nightmare. Society has convinced people that if they aren’t ragingly hormonally in lust with someone, they’re not in love. That on this day of all days, you have to show them that you care by spending money on things they probably don’t need and likely wouldn’t even want if it weren’t for societal culture telling them they should. But they do, because society says to want it.

Human beings are a social species. We want to be wanted, to be liked, to be cared for and care for others. The culture we’ve built tells us it has to be shown through material means.

I’m not saying I wouldn’t love to have a dozen roses and a box of chocolate for Valentines day. I’d prefer it if you bought me a plant and made a mess of chocolates yourself, as opposed to buying them, myself, because I value the time you spent on it more than the money you spent on it. Understandably you probably don’t really have the time for that, because society has also taught us that time is money and if you want money you need to work, all the time.

I worked at Mordor. Now I work at Mordor’s slightly less bad cousin, like Bludhaven is to Gotham. We started getting Valentines things in before New Years. We had our first feature floating in the back room roughly the day after Christmas. It was baffling. I didn’t and still don’t understand it. The holiday is designed for couples. It’s not something a single person is supposed to enjoy.

And yet, February 15th is Valentines Supplies Half Off day. It’s an excellent holiday on its own. I love it, even when I’m broke.

But the holiday I really love starts the day before, on February 13th.

Lupercalia. The three day writing holiday about psychic wolves, honoring the wolf-mother of the fathers of Rome. (Arguably the holiday used to be people being chased through the village with various people beating them with goat parts, but it IS a fertility holiday, traditionally, and fertility holidays are weird.)

I mean. It’s not just a writing holiday. It’s a posting extravaganza. I write for it all year, and I’m certain a lot of other people do, too. But for three days, the group explodes in size. It’s magical.

There is a lot of fertility and romance involved, granted. If I’m ever not poor, I might start participating by buying wolf-themed writing gear? Who knows.

In the meantime: stories!

–Natasha