Why you won’t get flowers for Valentine’s Day

Hello & Welcome, 

#fromyourboldestfriend

 As February comes around the corner, so does Valentines Day, and I must say: I think red roses are very uninspired, perhaps if it were peonies I would be less inclined to be this opinionated about it, or maybe if I had someone to come shower me under an avalanche of roses then maybe, just maybe, my opinion on the matter would be biased, but as for someone who has been seeing the truth for years now, I must say roses, unless they are a personal favourite, are very uninspired. Not that there is anything wrong with roses, I for one love the myriad of metaphors that comes to mind when I think of beauty and its thorns, I love how they smell, their fragrance delicately spreading in every corner of the room, how they seem to bloom endlessly before drying or how they stand so rigidly proud in a crystal vase, but what can I say, I’m a peony kind of lady. 

A peony is blooming in spring right after winter, with imperfectly perfect pink heads, not too inclined to draw attention to themselves, their fragrance is very soft, shy, and subtle, they can bloom for over a 100 years, a bit magically, a bit messily,  I guess I’m a peony even on Valentines Day, resilient little creature waiting for spring.  

The Month of Love begins and I imagine how excited ladies get or how disappointed some of us will be when midnight arrives when we realize no suitor came to our door to present himself with a hundred flowers. I for one, however, will sit back, and sip my tea, a good book on my lap perhaps and my glasses on the tip of my nose, observing this day with a mix of enthusiasm, romanticism and a bittersweet feeling stuck in my bones. I’m not cynical, my singleness has not stopped me from wanting to fall in love nor has my heart being broken in the past stopped me from loving fully and unconditionally – I am still awfully romantic and I guess I always will be. Nevertheless, after years of being a helpless romantic, I have learnt to be romantic in a way that does not feel like an empty void but like a flower field, not so helpless anymore but capable, capable of growing my own flowers instead of hoping for someone to bring them to me. 

Do not get me wrong, I’m still a lady, I still hope for a man who will open the door and smile tenderly at me when I laugh so much that I snort, I hope to be married and have children with my best friend but the choice of word “hope” is important. There are two types of waiting for the right person to come around, there is the waiting that comes from greed and needs, a place of lack and of emptiness and the waiting that comes from hope and flow, a place of abundance and generosity. It took me a long time to realize that you can not love if you have no love to give, and although it seems like a pretty basic 2021 quote from Instagram, it is awfully true, as much as we wish it wasn’t. 

It is about learning to give, to give so you can take in good balance. I want to be able to fall in love in such a way that I can give, give unconditionally without ever feeling empty. The antidote to a big heart full of good intentions is to fill it up with light and love and care because it is okay to want someone, don’t we all, but you can’t expect someone to give you more than what you can give yourself. 

So I guess this Valentine’s Day, I’m hoping. Hoping that I can give myself patience, like the delicacy of things rightfully, I’m hoping I can give myself more time, time to be and to grow into a version of me I love. I’m hoping that I can give myself more friendship, to go on walks by myself, to buy myself a coffee and to be at peace with siping it alone not longing for company. I hope I can give myself more joy because I truly am happy, I’m also hoping for resilience, resilience to have the courage to change the things I might be less happy about. 

I have come to realize that what I bring to the table is plenty, and I can always bring more, and add to my table so I can share its content with someone someday who’s also going to have plenty on his table to share with me, and then maybe – pushing the metaphor – we could have a feast. You say you don’t want to eat alone, but the truth is, sometimes you must until you’re ready to dine with someone else.

Therefore, here are the rules this Valentine’s: 

1. Do not contact them if you miss them and you feel the need to, but text them if you feel generous with your love enough to share it. 
2. Do not buy her flowers, if you can not grow your own – and I’m talking metaphorically for anyone who is suddenly panicking over their poor gardening skills.
3. Do not take what you don’t have nor should you ask for it, do not take what you don’t need, that would be simply selfish.

It takes an awful lot of courage to apply these rules because it means that from now on, you can only give what you have, and you can only take what grows in your garden. Because just like you can’t chop a flower off from another garden and plant it to obtain a full garden of your own, you can’t take some else’s love if you do not have any to give, you can not grow something healthy and long-lasting if you do not have the patience to grow a garden with yourself. You can only grow a garden with someone else if you have the seeds, the soil and the patience for growth itself.

And to you, my future husband, I want to fall in love in such a way that I could give you all you need, the seeds, the soils, the sun and the storms, the patience and the care, the friendship and space, the love and the kind words, the tools and safety, and why not add the fence and the home into the deal,  because truly, that is all I’m hoping for, to be able to give the things that add to your garden, just as much as you will add to mine. And I think that this is what love should be, the embellishment of our respective gardens and the creation of our own.

I know it takes a lot of time to grow garden, but if you’re constant with care, after the sun, and the storms, you’ll grow peonies and they’ll bloom for a hundred years.

Yours truly, 

Your Boldest Friend x