Alanis Morisette said it best in her hit song. February: the month of hearts and flowers for Valentine’s Day also holds space for mental health awareness. And isn’t that ironic, don’t you think?
Valentine’s Day for me used to mean what it does for a lot of people: cards, flowers, maybe a dinner reservation, and a quiet hope that love would show up wrapped in a blanket with someone, watching a cheesy movie with a glass of wine. The butterflies, the overanalyzing of text messages, the whole rom-com fantasy package. Eek!
But then on February 14, 2013, Valentine’s Day changed forever.
That was the day I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was 31 years old. Well, 31 and a half, if we’re being technical. Too young, everyone said. I agreed. I was living my life, making plans, raising my son, assuming time was generous.
Never, not once, did I imagine I would be sitting in a doctor’s office on Valentine’s Day hearing three words that rearranged my entire world:
“You have cancer.”
On a day meant to celebrate love, I felt betrayed. Betrayed by the one thing that was supposed to carry me through this life. My own body. The very thing I trusted to protect me had turned against me.
Three weeks later, I had a double mastectomy. A month after that, I began chemotherapy. My diagnosis came on a holiday known for red roses and grand gestures of love. A month later, red no longer meant romance. It meant needles, IV lines, treatment rooms, and the beginning of a lesson I didn’t know I was about to learn: love doesn’t always arrive wrapped in flowers, and sometimes the most important kind is learning how to love yourself through survival.
Cancer has a way of stripping life down to what actually matters. It doesn’t ask permission. It doesn’t care about calendars or celebrations. And it definitely doesn’t wait for a “better time.” What it does do is force you to look at yourself. It makes you face your body, your strength, your fears, your resilience – with a kind of honesty that’s impossible to ignore.
And that’s where the irony of February deepens.
Because whether we admit it or not, Valentine’s Day affects people in ways we don’t always see. For some, it’s joyful. For others, it’s heavy. Maybe it’s the first Valentine’s Day after losing someone you love. Maybe it’s another year of wanting love and not having it. Maybe it’s complicated. Maybe it’s lonely. Maybe it stirs up anxiety, grief, or memories you’d rather not revisit.
Love and mental health are more intertwined than we often acknowledge.
In the years since my diagnosis, Valentine’s Day has taken on an entirely new meaning for me. It’s no longer about romance or expectations or whether someone remembered to buy chocolate. It’s become a day of self-love. Real self-love. The kind that isn’t about bubble baths or social media captions (though those can be nice), but about gratitude and grace.
It’s about loving the body that carried me through surgery, treatment, exhaustion, and healing. It’s about appreciating the scars that remind me I survived. It’s about honoring the version of myself who was scared but showed up anyway, again and again.
So now, when Valentine’s Day rolls around, I celebrate differently. I celebrate being here. I celebrate my strength. I celebrate the love I’ve learned to give myself — the kind of love that doesn’t depend on anyone else to validate it.
I truly hope that if you’re spending today with someone you love, it’s a beautiful one. I hope you get the dinner reservation, the laughter, the quiet moments, and the memories. Love, in all its forms, deserves to be celebrated and cherished.
As I sit here writing this, nearly 13 years to the day of hearing those dreadful words, I reflect on what love means to me, what it means to others, and just how
Erin Owen
essential it is in this life. Maybe it’s you and your significant other spending Friday nights at home binge-watching your favorite show. Maybe it’s your wonderful mother, sitting at every doctor’s appointment, by your side every single day while you were sick. Love is love, and it matters deeply to us all.
But if Valentine’s Day brings up hard feelings — grief, anxiety, loneliness, fear — please know you’re not weak for feeling them. Check in with yourself. Reach out to someone you trust. Talk to a professional if you need to. Caring for your mental health is not optional, and it’s not a luxury. It is an act of self-love, just as real and necessary as anything else.
This Valentine’s Day, give yourself permission to choose yourself. To rest. To ask for help. To stay.
Because sometimes the fiercest kind of love isn’t roses or romance. Sometimes it’s survival.
And that kind of love can save lives.
Great article Erin! This makes you appreciate life for what it is!!