By: August Dice ~Guest Writer~

Yesterday marked the end to the first month of 2017; a month that has left the rest of the world, and many amongst ourselves, looking towards the United States and thinking, “Well, that it is quite a kerfuffle.” As we enter February, we are given the rare opportunity to sway how this time in our history will be seen. How the next few weeks unfold will stand as a precursor to the next few years and beyond. Thus I think it is rather fitting that not only is February Black History Month, but that nestled within the days to come, is Valentine’s Day. With Valentine’s Day comes diapered cherubs, pink backdrops, those flavored chalk hearts, an increase in card sales that helps keep Hallmark’s profits in the black and above all we see an increase in “love.”

Over the years, love has experienced a multitude of dictionary swaps that have lead us to the current dichotomy we have with love; some of us use love in the place of like or enjoyment, while some of us cherish the very word and seldom use it out of fear of robbing it of our applied meaning. It is in this time of great change, back dropped in division, fear and hate, that I put too you that we let love return to its roots and think of love as “the unselfish, loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another.”

Regardless of whether or not you have a date with someone you love, someone you just meet, or with you cat and a nice bottle of wine, you have the choice to care. I say that we take a day, a week or a whole month and we forget about the politics, that we look across the aisles and remember that there is a person behind those signs and in those shoes and that we are all just people when you get past those pesky views. We all don’t have to run into the streets hugging and crying like we have no tomorrow, but let us look towards tomorrow with just a dash of love in our hearts, because what we had is not coming back and today is already over, but we will always have tomorrow.