Actually, No One Has A Better Valentine’s Day Than Single Moms

My boys and I sit cross-legged in our pajamas around the coffee table, where we will stay with our pink and red piles in front of us, even though it's a school night, until well after 9 p.m. Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, and I have the master list of their classmates, just fewer than 100 of them in total, and a bag of Hershey’s Kisses (pre-approved by their teachers), ready to attach to their notes. I have my own chocolates squirreled away to put on the foot of their beds in the morning. I am just a great Valentine mom right now is what I am saying. And I always have been.

I do not excel at every holiday, but I do at Valentine’s Day, and I think it’s because I’m single and have no romantic expectations. I am twice separated, a mom of sons four times over. I know the drill. I know there will not be any flowers coming for me at the end of the day. This is the secret about being a single mom on Valentine’s Day: It’s probably better for us than it is for anyone else.

Exhibit A: our cozy scene around the coffee table. Filling out novelty valentines for their classmates, this is where I am treated to the slow trickle of insight into my sons’ little souls. “Oh, I should give this one to Joe,” one boy said after carefully choosing an extra special Capt. America valentine with inexplicably three-dimensional muscles. “He races me in gym class and he gets really sad if he loses. I don’t want him to feel bad.”

February has been crushingly cold and gray, and we are just ready to find any way to enjoy it.

It goes like this as we go down the list, not all of the reactions as sweet and wholesome. An eye roll here, a telltale blush there. Hints at their secret lives and friendships and maybe even crushes. Things they would never tell me about otherwise. But we are in peak Valentine season, February has been crushingly cold and gray, and we are just ready to find any way to enjoy it.

My lack of a romantic partner has freed me up to really experience this, to enjoy all the best parts of Valentine’s Day, including and especially the chocolate. I have, on occasion, been known to buy myself a heart-shaped box of chocolate. I love my coupled friends giving me the side nod and saying weird things like “Maybe next year!” as though I didn’t get into the university of my choice. I appreciate the attention, I might even use the sympathy as an excuse for treating myself. Because I’m a sad singleton of many years now, slipping slowly into my spinster years, I deserve a spa day/spicy chicken sandwich/bottle of wine/long bath with the good candles. Because I’m supposed to be sad, right?

And yet, I keep somehow feeling OK for Valentine’s Day. More than OK. I look forward to it every year. I have a curated roster of feel good rom-coms, and I tuck myself into bed and watch movies under the covers with my heart-shaped box of chocolates. The romance in my movies has healed me in ways real love never has. Real love was painful and disappointing. Real love left me mute with heartbreak, in my bed and under the covers and feeling utterly hopeless when it was over. Movie love, on the other hand, is like one of my delicious chocolates from my heart-shaped box. Not always exactly what I would have chosen but satisfying and easy. Something I did for myself.

And I let myself feel this little glimmer of hope about romance, and I go a little hog wild and make snacks for my kids’ classes if it falls on a school day. If it falls on a weekend when they are away, it’s me with my movies, even a smidge better. I’m starting to think this version of life, and love, might be better than the real thing.