This past few days I realized that I’ve been learning and relearning the same thing every Valentine’s day – the heart wants what it wants and if you want to be happy, you have to follow it.
I remember a chapter of my high school biology textbook began somewhere along the lines of the heart is one of the strongest and most enduring muscles, pumping blood all day everyday from the time we’re born to the time we die. Of course being the mushy person I am, I translated that to the figurative heart is strong and it damn endures. My heart probably took this mantra too far as it has started to border on plain stubborn. You see, once I’ve latched on to something, I go full-on tunnel vision and just go. It takes me a while to decide but once I’ve 100% confirmed it’s what I want, I follow through. One of the notions I’ve fallen prey to is the concept of Valentine’s Day.
Rationally, I know how completely irrational celebrating love on one commercially appointed day is. Anti-Hallmark folks argue that you should be making everyday Valentine’s day, why limit the lovefest to Feb14?! I completely agree with this logic. However, the brain can be saying one thing, and the heart can be feeling otherwise. So I’ll say it: I’m a sucker for Valentine’s Day (even if I know how completely capitalism-driven it is).
I am one of those people who likes the hearts and flowers hoo-ha. I like sweet surprises, the romantic gestures, and honestly, I might pee my pants if someone gives me a full-blown harana (serenade). A couple of Valentine’s ago, I’ve come to the realization that just because something doesn’t happen the way you want it to doesn’t mean it’s not gonna happen at all. Long story short, I’ve always maintained an idea of how Valentine’s should be spent that I sometimes lose sight of why Valentine’s is spent. I’ve been too rigid with my expectations from other people because these are the things I’d gladly do even if the circumstance was too stressful to push through. My problem is I expect other people’s hearts to be just as stubborn. Which is wrong coz as the cliché line goes- just because someone doesn’t love/spend time/date/insert-verb-here you the way you want them to doesn’t mean they don’t love/spend time/date/insert-verb-here you with all they’ve got.
The thing is though, I know all these but somehow, my feelings still get affected – I feel the disappointment, annoyance, hurt, etc. The heart wants what it wants. I’ve been told it’s perfectly normal to feel those. What’s not is to let it control you, because as my friend Cielo wisely put it “the heart cannot rejoice in what the brain doesn’t accept and vice versa“. To reel these emotions back in and to put everything in perspective, my head asks what the heart wants more – the what or what it stands for? For Valentine’s past, it was someone to parade around the Ateneo halls with or someone to hold my hand when college was being a bitch? This particular boy or someone who’d fulfil Sternberg’s consummate love? Flowers or a piece of someone’s heart? A fancy Valentine’s date or spending time laughing and conversing with your loved one? I’ve always placed more value to the latter and both my head and heart rejoice in this choice. It’s not about having a stubborn heart, it’s about asking it the right question – what do you want the most? Because, at the end of the day, I go back to Paulo Coelho:
Lucky for me, I got everything I’ve wanted for Valentine’s this year – dinner spent laughing with a boy I absolutely adore who even held my hand when I was being pms-y… and flowers. :p
xx