This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UNCW chapter.
My Lovelies:
I’ve been single for approximately 99.7% of my 21 years on earth, so forgive me for not knowing how to write a love letter well. I’m not letting that stop me from expressing my love for you, especially on this day that Leslie Knope created just for us: Galentine’s Day (see Parks and Recreation Season 2, Episode 16).
There will come a day when we won’t celebrate this the same way anymore. You will all be married to doting husbands who will bring flowers and jewelry home for you, and this day will be about celebrating the greatest love that the two of you share. I will be at home showering my 72 golden retrievers with love, but, same concept. So, while we still have this day to love each other the most, I want to do so. You are the great loves in my life right now. You are the ones who I wish I could shower in gifts because of just how much I appreciate your presence in my life. I’m sorry I’m broke and can only buy you cheap $1 chocolates from Target, though.
You have dried my tears and given me a shoulder to lean on. You have been the ones to catch me when I fall. You celebrate every single thing about me which, I learned, I deserve. And you deserve, too. You deserve appreciation and celebration, devotion and compromise, being loved and being liked. All things that I can only hope I am showing you, and things that your future boyfriends and husbands had better show you–otherwise I’ll kick their ass.
And that’s the other thing, you fight for me. When someone wrongs me, you’re there in my corner without fail or question. I thank you and love you for standing up for me when I might not have felt I deserved it. But you made me feel like I deserved love most when I felt the most unlovable. You remind me that I am worth the fight when a boy hangs up the boxing gloves. You have taught me that my greatest love must be willing to understand all that I am and love myself for every piece of it, good and bad. You have taught me through example that this is possible. That I am lovable. That I am worthy of love because you love me as only a best friend can. And for that all I can say is thank you.
I love you for standing for me, for supporting me. For laughing with me and at me when I deserved it. For eating French fries with me at 3 a.m., and for bringing wine over to my apartment at 10 p.m. while I stood a crying mess in my doorway over the boy you told me months ago did not deserve me in all the greatness that I am. I love you for loving me.
I am so lucky to have you in my life, to be the Meredith to my Christina, the Rachel and Phoebe to my Monica, the Leslie Knope to my Ann Perkins. I am lucky enough to have an Emily and a Casey as my UNCW Galentines (below). One day, a man will consider himself lucky to have them, too. He will celebrate them in all of the ways that they are. But for now, I am thankful for the opportunity to celebrate each other. There is a lot of greatness about each other to stand for, support, and love. Our Galentine’s are the poetic and noble land-mermaids we choose to surround ourselves with, and this day is all about treasuring those fierce lady friendships we have created.
Photos courtesy of The Culture Kids, Buzzfeed, Allison Leso.