The Girl by Orchard Road

Valentine's day is just around the corner. While it is a celebrated day for many, for others it could be the most hated. Walking through Orchard Rd on this day, you will see flowers being sold at last minute, couples lining for movies and restaurants, and overly decorated stores that make you think a pink unicorn from Barbie world has eaten too much candy hearts and vomited all over it. For a single girl, it might feel that the day is especially invented to torture her; a physical reminder to what she easily ignores on all the other days: that she is in fact and after all, single.

We can't deny our human sexuality, romanticism, and of course love. One that leads us to in the end fulfill the great commandment of filling and subduing the Earth. It's an innate character that melts even the most stoned hearts. Love is the most natural thing that any creature do. It is the ONLY thing that we are supposed to do. A celebration of love, therefore, is always beautiful. The day is also a very good reminder to stop for a while, and literally smell the flowers, yes, those bought from 1-800-flowers.com. Without such occasions, we often forget to make our significant others feel special. In the midst of daily lives, we sometimes take our support system for granted, knowing that they will love us no matter what, or they would understand that although we are busy, we have them close at heart. The problem is, what's in your heart and mind, stays enclosed there, and without actions or words, they become arrows that fail to launch, sharp yet benign as ever. So, in a way, it's great that for those lost in the jungle of routines to rekindle the sparks on Valentine's day, to stop what you are doing, take a step back, and just be.

So if this celebration of love carries a significant importance, is supposed to be beautiful, and may safe marriages, what's wrong with our girl by the Orchard Rd? Is she just merely full of jealousy or insecurities? She could be. But, what girl would not when everyone walks in pairs making her feel like she has lost a limb, when she's actually perfectly fine. Maybe it is us as a society, that has made Valentine's all about you and me, about the gifts and impressing, chocolates and dinner dates, kisses, and for some this year, making sure they'd have a baby delivered on 11/11/11. Maybe sometimes, all we see is that one person, and how to make him or her as our only world, that we forget to look right and left to see that we should also celebrate love in singleness, and love in a bigger body of people. And that nobody should be left out in this celebration.

After all, stripped to its history, the day is actually celebrating St. Valentine's intense love for God that he got beheaded for his faith. A lost of self, for a bigger cause, an even bigger love than looking at our lover, and our lefts and rights. Before he died he left a message for the jailer's daughter to whom he fell in love and sign it with: from your Valentine. Three words that have left their marks for generations to come.

So maybe, we all should learn something from these words by Antoine de Saint-Exupery this Valentine's day. Words especially fitting in today's world, with all its unique revolutions, confusions, persecutions, and dilemmas, making the worries of choosing the right Valentine's surprise pale against other things that we should really worry about.

"Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction."

Happy early Valentine's day!