Lovely spring days, pleasant breeze and sweet sun, cooing birds and blooming flowers and it is said to be the season of love. Saint Valentine smiled upon us and showered us with hugs and kisses, chocolates and roses. People fell in love and fell out of love. There are mandatory posts and poems on love. For the world revolves around love, or so it seems.
Usually, I join the bandwagon and sing songs of love. I would dress in pink on Valentine’s Day celebrating love and waiting eagerly for my one true love. Spring makes me happy and dreamy and I relive moments of love while waiting for that elusive ‘love.’ For we have been taught to believe that the world revolves around love.
This Valentine’s Day was different somehow. I got up in the morning feeling no delight imagining love waiting somewhere around the corner. It felt like a usual working day and I forgot to wear pink. In the afternoon I mourned not feeling anything special. And in the evening I watched Starstruck and cried my eyes out (over glasses of JD) for love unrequited. The topsy-turvy day got me thinking what’s the big deal about love?
Fairy tales that are read to us, the romance that we read and later watch, and classics like Pretty Women or Sleepless in Seattle are all about love. Cinderella finds her prince and the girl always meets the boy and it’s all about love. The happy ending is about finding the one we love and it’s a tragedy when we don’t. Cinderella and Snow White lived happily ever after with their respective princes’ we assume.
Maybe Cinderella wanted to travel on her own and Snow White might not have wanted to get married after all. Why are there no fairy tales about a princess winning a battle or a maiden choosing her own independence over a husband? The tales of successful women, men too, are mostly biographies. In fiction, love waits around the corner while we finish our errands and conquer the world and the story ends happily only after we find love.
Why do we get such an overdose of romance when they are so many other things in life that matter? Don’t get me wrong, I am not being cynical. I know it’s great to be in love but I also know it’s a great feeling to have enough money to travel the world, buy good clothes and wine and hang out with friends. Once in a while, it feels great to indulge in a spa and pamper ourselves and sometimes sitting on our own and watching TV or doing nothing is just great. For we should never forget to love ourselves in our quest for someone to love.
I think it’s time we write a new fairy tale where the princess enjoys a glass of wine after conquering the world and claiming her crown!