I'm not into Valentine's Day...
But, like, if we celebrated love within a circus theme, I could consider it. Think **Harry Styles on our tabletops....
…you're welcome.
What if we started a little shift in our posture toward Love now, and in a few weeks, we feel more anchored in who and how we're acknowledging a day centered around red hearts and pink confetti?
A lot about Valentine's Day can feel overrated, and I'm usually the first in line campaigning for not making a big deal of it. However, I feel much is to be said for celebrating Love as a whole. Hear me out. I'm talking about the kind that we've worked for, advocated for, taught ourselves how to do, or perhaps gone to therapy to learn how to do well— love toward ourselves, our family members, friends, and yes, the one we call lover; and sometimes it's the kind we stumble upon, get swept up in and even if it didn't last it taught us a lot more than we anticipated.
I've made the most fun inspiration spread for you to feast your eyes on in the thick of any chapter of your story; single, committed, somewhere in the middle, this one is to be inspiring for all types of people, including outfitting, recipes, cocktails, tablescapes, and color schemes. My brain is spattered in that link. (When did she start liking vibrant colors?)
I believe there's so much delight inside of good Love, and the commercial feel of Valentine's can wash over all the different types of Love that are to be recognized. I'm not into the mandated gifts and cheesy-thoughtless gestures that often go hand-in-hand with Valentine's Day, but I'm entirely present for making room to honor the Love we're experiencing in our lives— with any one person. Sometimes, that's honoring the complex relationship of finding and loving who you are. Sometimes, that's livening things up with others.
There's a scene in And Just Like That where Carrie's friend, Nya, stays in and makes a chocolate soufflé, enjoying her own company and doing something she loves, and she fully relishes it. I love that. I think when we feel alone, leaning into what we love and doing that with joy feels like success.
Browse this shopping board for a range of items to help add a little sparkle to your room, table, picnic outside, the inside of your car, pack it all in a bag and show up to a friend'sfriend's house, make a complicated recipe you've been curious about, read a book. It doesn't have to be complicated; it can be going for a walk with some champagne and going home for a typical night of laundry and dishes- that's okay too.
I believe if we look around, there is a lot of Love surrounding us. And I think that's worth our energy to acknowledge. Sending Love to you. Poetry & Writings below—-
For the smitten:
“Allow yourself to dream. Discover the depths within your soul you still haven’t explored. Embark on adventures to seek your inner treasures still yet to be unearthed. Give yourself a purpose, or find the nature it has always been yearning for. Reward your mind with all the intellectual stimulation it has been craving. Go where your heart desires, where your life wants you to be, where your path wants you to thrive. In the tiniest of steps and gentle forward motions, move towards the direction of the kind of life you’d want to be living every day.” -Charis Ed
For the heartbroken:
“It can always turn out to be worse than what it already is. So, endure the cold, defy the odds, ride the waves, weather the hurricane, brave the elements. You’ll get through, you’ll overcome as you always do. You can never drown in the floods of despair, for you are an ocean, you are water, you are the storm. You may feel broken today as if your heart is shattered into thousands of pieces but one day you will welcome a sunrise where you will feel whole and where you will realize that you were never really broken in the first place, you were simply learning how to become strong.” -Charis Ed
For the wanderer:
“Live your days with every bit of love that you can give. Live your days with every bit of love you have within.” -Charis Ed
For the frustrated:
“Trust the journey you are on. Trust the ground you’re standing upon. You are not advanced, nor behind. You are exactly where you need to be right now. The journey is as important as the destination. The process is the path, and the path is the purpose. -Charis Ed
For those on the verge:
“You may not know the reason why something had to happen the way it did, you might not have the reason as to why some things worked out, and some things didn’t, it might not even feel right how some things have ended or how some things have turned out, but it will all make sense to you one day. All will be revealed to you in its proper time and place. Then you’ll see how life purposefully redirected you to dodge a bullet so you may catch the beauty instead.” -Charis Ed
If you want more readings like these I pulled the writings from here.
Until next time.
xx,
k. élan