Yesterday, as we all know, was Valentine’s Day. My husband is in the process of being baptized Catholic so yesterday our plans happened to revolve around church obligations.In between 2 church services  yesterday I was laying on the couch napping and thinking of how it was Valentine’s Day. I wasn’t able to fall asleep because I wanted to know who is this mysterious saint, and where did these traditions come from? When did Valentine’s Day become a holiday associated with love, chocolate, flowers and hearts? After much research I realized it was way to hard to sum it up in a paragraph so if you’d like to read…here ya go! Click Here

Now, although this day is about “love,”  over the year’s I’ve noticed that Valentine’s Day has become more about hate than love. It’s trendy to hate the holiday. There are more meme’s and social media posts about being single and hating valentine’s day than there are about being in love.

Now, you may be thinking, that’s easy for you to say, you’re married. And yes, I am married. And my valentine gifts from my husband were a new Vera Bradly lunchbox so I could take my lunch to work when we are out of plastic Shop Rite bags and matching organizational notebooks for us, for me so I could stay organized for grad school. And I love how much my husband thinks and knows the inner workings of me. But still, with my new gifts, my thankfulness for him and the warmth of him by my side as I attempt to nap, I still felt sad and a little sick. And because of that I was emotional eating yesterday. I was filling a void on the day when I had what everyone else wanted.

I wanted to get to the bottom of this emotional eating on Valentine’s Day so I texted two of my best friends who happen to be single to weigh in. I asked them how they felt today. We had a very candid conversation that further prolonged my nap but confirmed what I was feeling, we all hated the day. They were both feeling blah-ish and admitted that single’s care more about Valentine’s Day than couples. They both were working to overcompensate for being single, buying themselves gifts and making plans to not be sad. They wanted what I had. And yet, I wanted what someone else had.

You see, holidays have become the hardest days for me, personally. It’s the anticipation of me seeing all the babies on social media in holiday themed onesies that triggers me.There are some days I actually feel weird that I’m ok in certain situations… I can go to baby showers, I am fine. I am over the moon thrilled for any and all my friends who tell me they are pregnant. I’m beyond obsessed with my nephew. He even wore a Valentine’s Day onesie I swooned over. And if he didn’t wear one I would have been like…someone needs to get that kid a valentine’s day onesie!  AND I buy holiday themed onesies for kiddies I love so yeah I know it’s strange. For some reason, the holiday themed onesies are what gets me. Honestly, it’s beyond bizarre. I’ll be the first to admit it. But since this Valentine’s Day I didn’t have my bab(ies) to put in any cute holiday themed onesie I felt a void and needed to fill it. And as always, I filled it with food. 1/2 jar of peanut butter to be exact. Even though, having a baby had NOTHING to do with the actual holiday of love. NOTHING.And to make it worse… I didn’t see any “fat jewish,” “fuck jerry,” or “betches” memes about holiday themed child onesies to help me feel not so alone…go figure:)

From here, the story spider-ed. It went from my single friends feeling the void of a relationship, to me in a relationship feeling the void of a baby, to someone else with a baby feeling a different void, to that person feeling a void…ect. ect. ect. Valentine’s Day had become more about what you didn’t have than about recognizing what you did have, what you loved.

Lesson to be learned, if we let ourselves, we can live in a constant state of wanting more. But here’s why we shouldn’t… as much as it hurts, the void should not be feared. Those voids should not be filled and we shouldn’t try to fill them. The void is where miracles, strength and change come from. Those voids make us who we are and why others love us. I know for a fact that my biggest successes in life have come and are coming from my biggest challenges, my biggest voids.

If we can all grow to LOVE our voids, we will love ourselves. When we love ourselves I believe each and every one of us can conquer the world.

And for the record, I do think we should all go back to buying Valentine’s for the whole class. When I was standing in the Valentine’s aisle in Target this weekend, I truly missed the stress of picking THE valentine I was going to give my entire elementary school class this year. Those were the days. Those were the stresses I’ll cherish.

Nico did have a Valentine waiting for me Saturday morning, little man knows how I like to eat my feelings <3