Valentine’s Day Survival Guide 2019

Good afternoon, mes chéries! It’s that time of year again, mes chéries…Valentine’s Day. Last year, I decided to be festive and create a his and hers lookbook with my friend Ryan. The year before, I created a date night lookbook myself as well. I battled between doing a lookbook or at least publishing a Valentine’s Day shopping list for you all to get ideas from this year, but my heart just wasn’t in it this time.

To be honest, I never liked Valentine’s Day. It’s a holiday that regardless of origin has become completely consumerism oriented. Why do we need one day to remind the single ones that they’re single and the ones in relationships that they should treasure their loved ones? You should live your best single self and treasure your loved ones every damn day! 😤 So this year, I want to focus this post on the love aspect of Valentine’s Day instead of what to wear for a dinner or date activity.

One of the yoga instructors at my favorite hip hop hot yoga studio (Y7 Studio) here in New York once said,  “Life often gives us what we need before it gives us what we want.” That phrase resonated with me so much I might as well get it tattooed on my face. Just kidding.

In life, we all have had (or knew someone who had) that one love/infatuation that was a passionate rollercoaster of emotions and possibly even turned toxic. We wanted to come to fruition soooo badly that we were willing to sacrifice anything to make it happen even if it was a terrible and unhealthy relationship. The reason why it was always a shitstorm is what we want and what we need did not align and we refused to recognize and acknowledge that.

We also don’t know how to love ourselves. I almost want to argue that even the most selfish people still fail to love themselves properly. When I say love ourselves, I don’t mean how often we pamper ourselves. I mean how often we actually do things for our minds, our bodies, and our hearts when we need to do them even when we don’t want to. Ask yourself how many times you’ve made a decision that you know very well is not going to return the best result or a favorable result for you in the end but you do it anyways because you want whatever short-term return you get from it. If you are actually honest with yourself, I bet you my next paycheck that your list will be quite long.

Since when did it become ok for us to love ourselves so poorly? Take care of others better than the way we take care of our own minds, bodies, and hearts? Why is self-care and self-love still looked on as “being selfish” when in reality it’s just simply understanding what needs to be done first so everything else can fall into place?

When it comes to love, the only way to get what we want, is to get what we need first. What we need is to understand how to respect and love ourselves so that others learn how to treat respect and love us. We need to have our lives in order so that a partner could add to our lives, not become an accidental burden and vice versa. We also will never know what we need in a partner until we see what we have in our lives and how we want to enrich it. When we know what we need to enrich it, what we need becomes what we want and and everything aligns.

Sometime recently I was pretending to be sicker than I was to avoid social interactions (aka I was doing laundry), I had an epiphany: When it comes to love, I settled for guy after guy so frequently because I felt guilty for wanting a certain type of partner. I felt like the qualifications I looked for in a guy were things I either didn’t deserve to ask for, couldn’t measure up to, or were trivial and superficial. But why? Why did I feel guilty for demanding traits in a partner that I demand from my friends? Why did I feel guilty for asking a partner to simply match up to me on my level? Why did I feel guilty for asking to receive back what I would give him? At this point in my life I know very well who I am, what I have to offer, and what I need. Therefore, I know very well what I want. Since that day, I have yet to really miss a past lover or feel guilty for turning someone down who blatantly doesn’t have what I need.

You can’t enjoy the journey that is life or love to the fullest until you have everything you need in your suitcase. So start packing the things you have and need on to continue on this life journey. Look at what you have to offer those you meet along the way, understand what is missing so you can find that to fill up the rest of that suitcase, and whatever room is leftover can be filled with extra souvenirs you find along the way.

If you’re single this Valentine’s Day, don’t be bitter or upset. Don’t wish you were canoodling next to a boyfriend like that b*tch Susie will be doing. You don’t want her boyfriend, trust me. He’s not right for you😉. You want a guy who can make YOU fully happy, not someone else. Just treat it like any other day.  Don’t forget to love hard and unapologetically, mes chéries, but only after you figure out how to love yourself.

Until next time, bisou bisou…