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"Olive Juice"

Buying chocolates solely because it’s Valentine’s Day is kinda like staring deep into the eyes of the person you love and mouthing "olivejuice."

By Kira ZimneyPublished 5 years ago 3 min read
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Candy Hearts Image from Google

It’s as ridiculous as that.

Asking someone out simply because it’s Valentine’s Day is also a character trait I want nothing to do with.

Let’s not forget that whether you are single or not, Valentine’s Day is just another day. Give that love to yourself. Sounds cliche and cheesy, but I’d rather it be cliche and cheesy for avoiding candied hearts and processed, artificial sweeteners covered in a milky layer of mucus-forming pink and red chocolates, than it be cliche and cheesy for asking some person you met out on Valentine’s Day.

There’s something about this day that feels phony to me.

I can’t be the only one that feels this?

I won’t go into some long body of an article explaining how love should be celebrated every day of the year, or how even if you are single you should treat yo’self, blah blah, but the specific holiday itself, feels fake.

Look at what is commercially sold on this day: candy that’s made of high fructose corn syrup, more corn syrup, cornstarch, glycerin, more artificial dyes and flavors, gelatin, which is animal fats formed into a fat-like substance, and of course, various numbers of dyes. Or should I say *dies*.

I don’t mean to ramble on about how toxic the ingredients are, or about what the holiday represents, but let’s get to the point here, follow the real, factual, mindful steps in life. Not just on Valentine’s Day, but on any other day.

Go where the real love is. Because I guarantee it’s not rolled up inside a chocolate cake, or in a champagne wine glass somewhere in the middle of a crowded restaurant.

Odds are, it’s all around you, or it was there where you left it, years ago, in the middle of a house party. That person who just wanted to spend ten more minutes with you because they did love you. Or it’s that person that you see on your way to work, who pauses an extra few seconds just to give you a genuine smile, a smile with their eyes invested in every glimmer of their being.

Finding love has less to do with an exterior search, or waiting for someone to muster up the courage to ask you out, or to even muster your own courage to say yes to the guy who’s been asking, and more to do with finding the love for yourself.

Even if it’s just a whisper to yourself in the car door mirror, “Olive juice.”

Some people are born with that adoration for themselves, by what their parents subjected them to, and some people, it takes time. So allow that “olive juice” to grow, and over time, "olive juice" will become “i love you.”

Because no matter what you personally want to achieve in life, no matter how much you make, how many hours you spent studying your life away to become the prestigious rank you worked to become, no matter how much fame or fortune you acquire, we are all humans who enter the world not knowing what is happening and we leave the world most likely not knowing what is happening (if we’re lucky). In the middle of it all is the space we all want. To be admired, appreciated, respected, adored, and loved. Even you, who’s reading this thinking you are not like that, you're only kidding yourself. Everyone sees through that artificial yellow dye number 5 you’re trying to mix in. Get real: we’re all needy and we’re all just craving to be loved. At the end of the day, we all want the same things; we all just want to be loved in return by the person we love.

Only you know what is real and what isn’t.

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About the Creator

Kira Zimney

Writing is my obsession, storytelling is my passion.

I gravitate towards challenging myself & paying attention to detail while balancing the need to tell a great story.

www.kirazimney.com/

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