My friends may argue with me on this point, but I know I’m not Carrie Bradshaw (or at least that life isn’t just one giant season of SATC). As I’ve reached my 30s, I can honestly say that drugstore holidays have little impact on my life. My attitude toward Valentine’s Day can now best be described as one of hard-won, total indifference. Whether I mark it with friends or spend it alone on my couch watching The Good Wife, it’s just another mid-winter day. I eat the office candy, and feel nothing more than a brief sugar rush.

Now, with mid-February fast approaching, I find myself in a relationship with a great guy for the first time in a while. We met 10 years ago, during one of those drunken dance floor quests for company (not on Valentine’s Day — this isn’t a Nicholas Sparks novel). We spent the night in his hotel, and the next morning, he returned to Boston, where he spent half his life. For a time, I wistfully thought of him as the one who got away, and I never forgot his huge grin.

When we matched on Tinder last fall (you guessed it!), I knew it was him. He had just moved to New York for a job, and yes, he remembered that night. The rest is recent history.

So, what now? I've spent so much of my life running from Valentine’s Day, trying to shut it out, drowning it in booze, dressing it up as a bonding experience with single friends, and, more recently, allowing it to pass by completely unobserved. To “celebrate” it at this point, even though I finally feel as if I have something worth celebrating, would feel cheesy at best, and disingenuous at worst.

In place of a fancy dinner, my boyfriend and I are planning a fancy lunch (so punk rock, I know) — and we’re doing it on the 13th, because something about the unlucky number feels appropriate. We’ll wake up together the morning of and eventually go our separate ways. Since Valentine’s Day falls on a long weekend this year, I’m planning on finding a dance floor with friends Sunday night and having one too many drinks. Not in the hopes of filling a void or meeting someone new, but to remind myself that any day is what you make of it — whether it’s some made-up holiday or the day you finally land a second date, a decade in the making.