By Bo Rhodes
Maniacal cackling fills your ears as the hyena circles around you. The warm, carrion-stench of its breath fills your nostrils and you know that the end is near. The powerful teeth tear at your soft flesh, as you clutch your heart and scream at the sky. This is love in all its glory and the hyena is the person who just dumped your sorry ass.
Fast forward to Valentine’s Day: you sulk and spew forth cynicisms about the Hallmark Holiday; about how it was created by the gift industry to alleviate the low time between Christmas and Easter. A local furniture store claims that your sweetheart doesn’t want candy or flowers, but instead needs the gift of a reclining chair with a matching footstool. The whole thing makes you sick to your stomach. Love sucks and so do all those people who are knee deep in rose petals and oak-end tables.
Let’s consider, for a moment, that your ever-loving snugglebum didn’t throw you to the curb like yesterday’s garbage, and that you are staring longingly into each other’s eyes right now. You’d probably have an entirely different view of love and Valentine’s Day. You would gush to those around you how being in love was like a never-waking dream, a perfect sunset and a chocolate cake all in one. Instead you are single, lonely and pathetic. To you, love is like 100,000 rusty knives driven into your chest with a spatula while having to listen to Hanson for eternity.
Sure you’ve been screwed by love. Who hasn’t? But love, and by extension Valentine’s Day, are not your enemy. Neither are all those couples who will mark the day with cooing voices and cuddling arms. Look at love as so much more than sappy cards, aspartame-laced candy or cheesy television specials. It is the single most powerful force on earth. It is the force that unites and it is the force that tears apart. It’s that feeling you get when you see your dog, hear a meaningful song or hold your friend’s hand. Instead of bitching about awful love is this Valentine’s Day, take a walk, hang with some friends, and look around. There’s no escaping it. It’s everywhere. Love the world around you and just enjoy the day.