<e again, Valentine’s Day has come and gone, leaving everyone with sugar crashes and visions of idyllic amour. While I’m personally against the consumerist culture surrounding this fairly trivial holiday, it is admittedly good at re-enforcing relationships of all kind, whether it’s connecting with your friends, telling your family how much you love them, or finally asking out your long-term crush with chocolate and roses.
Especially at Carleton, it’s striking how much the community shows each other how much they care. While Friday flowers is a touching tradition in and of itself, the specially extended Thursday flowers on Valentine’s Day meant that the mailboxes in Sayles were overflowing all day from students scrambling to give each other bouquets of daisys or roses. Also, the post-office was swamped with packages from out-of-town friends and family members, further bolstering the feelings of love throughout the student body.
At the end of the day, it isn’t about how many pounds of chocolate we all consumed or if we got little brightly colored cardboard cards professing love; it’s really about how much we show each other that we love one another. Aw shucks, that’s stupid sappy, right? Probably, but that doesn’t make it any less true. You don’t have to be in a relationship to enjoy Valentine’s Day because it isn’t just about passionate love but more about strengthening bonds of friendship and familial ties.
This world could use some bright, shiny, happy people holidays to remind everyone that love is a pretty cool thing. And what better time and place than the middle of winter on a college campus? Obviously, at this point I could say something even more sappy and sentimental, like “everyday should be Valentine’s Day!” or “we don’t need a holiday to show each other our love” but I won’t go that route. Instead, happy Valentine’s Day for those of you who got into the spirit of the holiday and for the rest of you, I hope you had happy Thursday. At least now there won’t be as much pink colored candy in Sayles.