Galentine's Day

I'm not as cynical about Valentine's Day as I used to be. Maybe I'm just picking my battles a little more carefully, or maybe I'm just getting to that age where I'd rather take a nap than stew about how IN LOOOOVE everyone is. I'm single. The pressure I used to apply to my ex-husband is off. I can just relax instead of waiting for him to not live up to what he is "supposed" to do for me. It's, frankly, a relief. Plus, I was too excited about Galentine's Day to even think about Valentine's Day. Galentine's rules, and Valentines can suck it.
Galentine's Day was perfect, of course. It was the perfect group lady-date. You can't really go wrong with the group of girls (and one dude) who were there, especially when your group activity is eating waffles and drinking Bud Light. The other thing that made it great was that it was a pretty even split between single people and people who are in a relationship. This is just more proof that Hollywood always gets it wrong when they portray what it is like to be single in this day and age. In the rom-com version of my life, I would have spent my first Valentine's Day post-separation crying, maybe looking through my wedding album and chugging white wine like a doctor is on his way to saw my legs off. Instead, I spent the 13th pounding waffles and beer (which is, real talk, an underrated combination) and the 14th going to see The Silver Linings Playbook. The only time I cried was during the movie, and I blame Robert DeNiro for that. This Valentine's season left me feeling more loved and cared about than the past five have. Who gives a shit, right? I love movies and I love my girlfriends. If this stupid holiday is about love, then I spent the night before with a bunch of people I love and the evening of doing what I love. I crushed Valentine's Day.
I spent the morning of Valentine's Day, ironically, texting with Gino. He posted something that confused me on Facebook, I asked him what his post meant, and then started texting me from his brand-new Android phone either because he misses me a little or because he has no one else to text. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.
After he explained what he meant (and I explained to him what Instagram is, a.k.a. the Magical Place Where Happiness Lives) we both suggested that we should hang out soon. We went back and forth on when and where and what we could do together, and I got a little jolt of deja-vu. It felt like, even though it definitely isn't, we were setting up a date. Here I am, finally feeling comfortably blase about Valentine's Day, and I'm setting up a pseudo-date with my ex.
We met for a beer that quickly turned into him updating me on the girls he is attempting to date. One is a single mom who seems kind of out of his league, if I'm honest, and the other is a girl I think might be a little too young for him. Still, I reserved my opinion and told him to go for it with either of them because, despite the little cramp I get in my gut over it, I really just want him to find someone. More than that, I want him to find someone who is better for him than I was. I was a good wife, but not what he needs. I let him get away with so much, let him coast because I didn't want to be hard on him. That's how I know how much I love him, still, even when I want to strangle him because he is barely paying attention to what I am talking about because he is so distracted by the huge set of jugs standing to my right. I kind of love him for that, too. He can do whatever he wants now, after all, and so can I.