Today Was a Fairytale

I think a lot of people get depressed on Valentine’s Day, moping around the house, downing a bottle of wine while listening to Sad FM: Easy Listening for the Over 30s, as Bridget Jones so eloquently put it before launching into a stellar rendition of “All By Myself”. They wonder why they haven’t got that Hollywood-manufactured, rom-com kind of love, that’s big, over the top, full of lines that make your knees go weak (“I like you … just as you are”, “You had me at ‘hello’,” et al), declared over a full orchestral overture. Am I too fat? Are my boobs too small? My biceps too wobbly? Does my new nose make me look like Heidi Montag and ET’s lovechild?

To me it seems like this holiday, which let’s face it, is commercial marketing genius, becomes something negative, more about spending large amounts of money on overpriced chocolate and white teddy bears, and deliberating on what makes us so repulsive that we’re not in a perfect relationship a la any Meg Ryan film, and less about focusing on the positive relationships in our lives.

This Valentine’s Day I won’t be crying on the couch, cradling a tub of ice-cream watching Hugh Grant rapidly blink his way to true love, but telling my family and friends how much they mean to me. If I can do that, as today comes to a close for another year, I’ll be quoting Taylor Swift in the theme song to the aptly named film Valentine’s Day – “Today was a fairytale.”

(But seriously, are my biceps too wobbly?)