Time for love – even for singletons?

As I write, I’m enjoying a hot cup of tea in my special mug. It’s Yorkshire Decaff, and if you’ve tried decaffeinated tea but find it too wishy washy, I’d recommend trying Yorkshire as it really is like proper tea!

Anyway, this post isn’t about tea, but was inspired by the mug. I bought it just under a year ago, after Valentine’s Day, for 39p in a sale in Tescos. I decided that, being single at the time, I’d buy it for myself and feel loved anyway. I use it every day and it always makes me feel happy.

For those of us who are single, the current obsession in the shops, advertising and social media about Valentine’s Day can make us feel a bit left out. Less than, even. And if it’s not long since your relationship ended, then it can be downright painful and it’s hard not to take it personally. I recognise that and I salute you if you are going through that pain. I’ve been there, too.

But my 39p purchase last February was the beginning of a new attitude. An “if you can’t beat them, join them” attitude. I don’t need to wait for a boyfriend to buy me a mug with “love” all over it; I can buy my own, not in a self-pitying or rebellious way, but with love. I applied the same sort of attitude change to my old “bah humbug” feelings about Christmas this year and it really worked – look out for some seasonal posts later in the year!

Over the top as it might seem, February seems to have become the month of luuuurve. We are inundated by it; we don’t even have to leave the house to get the message that right now, we are supposed to be thinking about hearts, flowers, frilly underwear and candlelit dinners. Of course, I do realise that this is all done with an eye on the bottom line, to make money by selling cards, flowers, food…..or mugs. And it’s changed out of all recognition from when I was a teenager and boys used to make their own cards, cutting letters out of the newspaper to disguise their handwriting, to send to the girls they fancied. Now it’s just another opportunity to get it wrong, forget, or otherwise fail, if you want to look at the commercialisation with cynicism.

Well, I choose not to. In fact, what I’ve decided to do is expand the whole thing beyond couples and romance, and grasp a big opportunity to celebrate love, at the end of a long, cold, somewhat dismal winter. And how am I doing that, besides drinking tea out of my special mug?

Last year, I blogged about making a list of things I love, and how the list grew and made me feel great. I’d like to propose we all have a go, dig out our lists if we already have them, or give it a try if we haven’t done so before. I’ve expanded the process with my own, creating categories to prompt myself to spend more time thinking of things I love. For example, a category headed “flowers” makes me think of all the flowers I really love (I’m definitely leaving out petunias because I’ve never been able to get on with them) and, as I remember each one, I see it in my mind’s eye and feel a tiny little bit of that love. On a different tangent, some time ago I realised I needed a category called something like “people I don’t actually know”, so that I can put Brad Pitt in there, having nearly collided with a bigger-than-life-size cardboard cut-out of him advertising perfume. I also have a category for food and one for animals. The possibilities are, actually, endless.

You don’t need any spare time at all to do this, and to get the good feelings that naturally flow as a result. It helps to write your list down, at least to start with, but you can make lists in your head while you’re showering, driving, doing housework, whatever. We’re not on this earth for very long and every day is precious. If there’ s a way to squeeze a little more love into today, easily, shouldn’t we have a go? And let’s keep it going way beyond February!

PS. Just got to add that any time you’re using your mind to think in this sort of way, you’re avoiding unnecessary and damaging worry, and teaching your brain good new habits!