Something everyone knows about me is that I really do not celebrate Valentine's Day. For me, the day is a Feast Day for a Catholic Saint and one that gets me discounted chocolate. It is nothing special.

On February 14, 2018, it became a special day.

The first special thing about this Valentine's Day is that it was Ash Wednesday (again a Catholic thing if you are confused about this) so I was able to spend time in church reflecting on what St. Valentine's contribution to faith was while celebrating the beginning of the Lenten Season.

The second special, I use the word special loosely here, is that half of UTK's campus lost power and water for four hours that night. This seems like an odd thing to find special, but the #BigOrangePowerOutage was the perfect excuse to watch a movie off my laptop with the guy I had a major crush on.

The third special thing is that my current boyfriend and I officially started dating on Valentine's Day! This was not a "Will you be my girlfriend?" situation, it was a conscious decision to try to have a really good, adult relationship and commit to each other wholeheartedly.

The best part is that we both forgot it was Valentine's Day.

When I told my family I started dating someone and they asked when, everyone was shocked because, as my sister put it, "You are the least romantic person on the planet." There was so much happening February 14th last year that it almost seemed natural to forgot about the Hallmark-produced-version of this holiday.

I can safely say that now, almost a year later, we have lived up to every romantic comedy that starts with people falling in love on Valentine's Day and we cannot wait to celebrate our anniversary instead of Valentine's Day again this year!