Sunday 14th February…it’s Valentine’s Day…AGAIN!
Once upon a time, there was a romantic young woman who lived from Valentine’s Day to Valentine’s Day. With eyes filled with red love hearts and enthusiastically searching the globe for her Romeo, her one true love, she mailed out Valentine’s day cards by the thousands hoping that one day true love would come.
Oh how the mighty have fallen!
Fast forward 25 years and that very same woman is now hunting down cupid with a vengeance. A caped crusader trying to rid the world of this evil little blighter, who despite an eternity of arrow-shooting practice, is still randomly shooting arrows all over the place, constantly missing his targets.
While missing targets is bad enough, it gets worse. Much worse!
You see, he shoots those very same, well-intentioned arrows into all the wrong people causing all sorts of grief and heartache.
What’s more, I know it’s deliberate. I have absolutely no doubt that Cupid enjoys making people suffer watching their one true love pointlessly pursue someone else who is in love with someone else.
Sick! It’s truly sick.
Yet, it seems to give Cupid some kind of sadistic pleasure. But before anyone can implicate him in his terrible misdeeds, Cupid has done his dash, fled the scene leaving nothing but carnage. The place looks like a smash-up derby with smoke pouring out of crippled engines. Yet, these are real people made of flesh and blood with beating hearts. They hurt!
Yet, for some reason those looking for love still have faith.
Believe.
One day, cupid will finally come!
After all, isn’t life just one great big Disney fairytale?!!
Ha!
Perhaps, true love might come but it could well be long after an extremely long and very bumpy road… volumes of heartbroken verse, pouring bunches of incredibly expensive long-stemmed red roses and luscious, scrumptious chocolates straight down the proverbial toilet. Enduring romantic dinners with all the wrong people…All while cupid plays matching pairs with his eyes shut.
I am sorry but somewhere along the way, I’ve become cynical and lost the faith.
It’s not that I’m still single and haven’t found the one. Indeed, cupid finally did come through for me and my husband even proposed on Valentine’s Day.
However, Valentine’s Day is a bit like winning those all important prizes at school. You can work hard all year and be smart, intelligent and conscientious but if you’re No. 2 instead of number 1, you’re sunk. You can be in a relationship all year but if you’re single on Valentine’s Day and staying home with your cat, you’re suddenly ugly, unlovable and a total loser. You’re not enough enough and nobody wants you.
Indeed, you’ve just won the Loser’s Lottery.
Meanwhile, just to compound your angst, everyone around you has somehow managed to find “The One”.
Or, at least, their true love of the moment!
However, if you are single this Valentine’s Day, take heart. As I said, it’s not your fault. It’s Cupid.
So why don’t we both do the world a favour and shoot him down.
Then, you might just have a chance of ….(I can hear some violins!)
A Happy Valentine’s Day!
xx Rowena
Beyond the Flow 
This post made me laugh out loud, feel cynical and feel hopeful all at the same time! Great read
No shares in a florist or chocolate company then?
Nor me! 🙂
No unfortunately. I can only provide wrist-slashing poetry from my university days. No profits in that! Hope you are having a great weekend. I reblogged a review of 10 children’s books for teaching character which I thought you’d enjoy.
xx Rowena
Thanks very much. I’ll be driving my daughter to a birthday party at the local bowling alley and if my 20 year old self would have foreseen that, she would’ve disowned me immediately. At the same time, I wouldn’t trade what I have now for all the fun I had back then. Yes, I’ve become a dag but I’m comfortable inside my skin and not having to pretend anymore and that’s incredible.
I hope you find the right person for you and all goes well!
xx Rowena
Pingback: Coffee With Love! | beyondtheflow
Aw, Ro, Happy Valentine’s Day to you and yours. Loved this post! I’d been without Cupid’s arrow for decades before Wayne walked back into my life and every day I pinch myself at that good fortune. Guess it’s true, when you least expect it…the magic of love arrives and taps you on the shoulder. ღ
I’ve seen that post in my inbox but haven’t had a chance to read it yet. I’m sure I will enjoy it.
Don’t like the sound of wrist-slashing poetry. I’m so pleased you survived! 🙂
I’m with you! Never have been a valentine day fan…too much pressure. Too much disappointment. I could have dropped a boulder on my husband’s head and he still would not get the hint! He just was not a romantic and I eventually grew to dislike Cupid. Gee, that sounds more like I am green with envy for those who do celebrate the day!
Sometimes searching for the prince merely leads to kissing a lot of frogs.
Oh yes! And cane toads as well!
I’ve never done much for Valentine’s Day, and since my husband and daughters all have February birthdays, we had plenty of celebrating going on. Our older daughter and her now wife did get engaged though at Disney World on Valentine’s Day a few years ago. 🙂
Hope yours was still fun!
I must admit I would’ve loved to live it up yesterday with my knight in shining armour but I was where I was supposed to be and I was reminded of an old song “saying I love you are not the words I want to hear from you…because I’d already know.”
Life might be a lot more settled these days but it’s wonderful to know I’m loved and am with the one I love and don’t have all that angst.
I love the sound of their Disneyland engagement. How fun! My husband and I got engaged 15 years ago on Valentine’s Day. It was pouring with rain so we ended up ducking into the Thai restaurant next door with bright orange laminate tables for dinner. He then gave me an orbital sander as a joke as he knew I was expecting a proposal and he still talks about the priceless look on my face! He ended up formally proposing in my parents’ driveway on the way to tell them. We’d had a really long talk there before we started dating and the papers were being delivered…an all-nighter. He drove an Austin Healy Sprite back then. We still have it in the back shed.
Those were the days… xx Rowena
A sweet memory. 🙂
I so agree with you about Valentine’s! I’ve always felt it was a forced holiday created to line the pockets of the company’s pushing it! Hubs and I decided many years ago we wouldn’t be forced to celebrate. In fact, we wait until chocolates are 75% off and enjoy 3 times as much candy!
I just recently found your blog and am quite enjoying it!
Blessings!
Thank you very much, Robbye Faye. I don’t think we had a huge post Valentine’s chocolate sale here. It’s not such a big thing here in Australia. We did have 50% off chocolates like Lindt and Ferrero Rocher before Christmas and these are lingering on a bit. I suspect that chocolate sales are dropping in the heat. It’s liquid by the time you get it home from the supermarket.
Hope you have a great weekend and blessings to you too!
xx Rowena
Oh, wow! Lindt and Ferrero Rocher never fo on sale here! They are both favorites of mine. Lindt is one of the best. You are probably right about the heat (though I think Lindt is better when the middle is melted, something that doesn’t seem to happen much here, but I don’t think it’s from lack of heat. We get really hot weather here in Alabama during the summer.
Hope you have a wonderful weekend, too!
LOL, that should say go, not fo!!
I agree with you about Lindy being better when the middle is melted but there is a fine line between melted and liquid. I’ve drunk quite a few in my time.
Alabama sounds interesting. What’s it like there? Are you in the country or a city area?
xx Rowena
The only good thing about Valentines Day Rowena is that my daughter was born 1 minute before that day. One poor little babe was not so lucky and they named him Valentine. My husband and I don’t celebrate it. I believe we don’t need an excuse to send cards and flowers on any other day. I think its for the younger ones but I hated it when I was young. I was shy and never got a card. Oh the pressure!
Valentine’s Day is a bit like school speech day. Great if you get one but disappointing when you don’t.
A belated Happy Birthday to your daughter and so sad about baby Valentine. I have a few friends who have lost babies at birth and it’s just awful.
By the way, has your daughter had to write any poetry for school yet? My son has had to write a poem about looking out his window. I thought it was an excellent topic and wrote two poems on it. English isn’t his strength and I didn’t know what to expect and then he turned up with quite a good effort. I helped him with layout and punctuation and helped him include more of the features his teacher had listed but I was impressed. I struggle to work him out at times but have thought that being very creative could explain gaps in some areas. It was also a better way of looking at it.
I don’t know whether you saw last weekend’s Good Weekend? There was a story about Joshua Yeldham, an artist who has produced a book for his daughter which also chronicles his experience with bullying. I have ordered it…a gift from my Mum who mentioned it to me. It’s not cheap because it also has art plates I suspect. It looked beautiful.
I won’t just be adding this book to my pile. It’s going to the front of the queue.
I also thought you would find this interesting. At my daughter’s school they are talking shelfies showing their book shelves. It started off in the classroom and the kids have been invited to send in shelfies from home. A great idea, I thought.
Hope you’ve had a great week and a good weekend ahead
xx Rowena