The Love You Keep Forgetting About

Maybe the love of your life isn't the only love that makes a life worth living.

February has a way of making romantic love feel like the main event.

For weeks, everything seems designed for two people. Dinner specials for two. Gifts for your person. Flowers delivered to offices with little cards that make everyone nearby pretend they aren't trying to read them.

It's sweet.

It can also make being without romantic love feel strangely like being without love at all.

And I don't think that's true.

I've been thinking about the people who have loved me through the parts of my life that weren't particularly romantic.

The people who answered the phone.

The ones who showed up without needing an invitation.

The friend who knew something was wrong because my texts suddenly had punctuation.

The person who sat beside me while I cried and didn't try to turn my grief into a lesson before I was ready to learn one.

The people who made me laugh when I had forgotten that I could.

None of those relationships came with flowers on Valentine's Day.

They still saved me.

I think romantic love gets credited for things love itself deserves credit for.

Being known.

Being supported.

Having someone remember the version of you that existed before everything got complicated.

Knowing there are people who would notice if you disappeared for a few days.

Those things aren't exclusive to romance.

Sometimes friendship does them better.

I have friends who know the difference between when I need advice and when I need someone to say, “That's awful. Do you want wine?”

That might actually be a love language.

There are people in my life who have seen me at my least impressive and somehow continued inviting me places.

People who knew me before the career.

Before the relationship.

Before the heartbreak.

Before I became this version of myself.

They don't need me to explain my entire history because they were standing in some of it.

There is something incredibly comforting about that.

Maybe because heartbreak makes you feel replaceable.

Someone who once knew everything about you can suddenly build a life that doesn't include you, and it's difficult not to wonder how easily everyone else could do the same.

Then a friend sends you something ridiculous because she knows exactly what will make you laugh.

Your mother calls because she “had a feeling.”

Your brother remembers something you mentioned three weeks ago.

Someone brings coffee without asking how you take it.

And quietly, the world reminds you that being left by one person is not the same thing as being unloved.

I wish we talked about that more.

Especially with women.

We're taught to measure so much of our lives by romantic milestones.

Who are you dating?

When are you getting married?

Do you want children?

Have you met anyone yet?

As if friendship, family, ambition, community, and the life you're building around yourself are waiting-room furniture until romantic love finally arrives.

They're not.

They're the life.

Romantic love can become part of it.

Maybe a beautiful part.

But I don't want to spend the years when I don't have it treating everything else like an intermission.

I don't want to overlook the people who choose me every day because I'm waiting for one particular kind of choosing.

And I definitely don't want to become so focused on finding someone to build a life with that I stop noticing the life I've already built.

There is love here.

So much of it.

It just doesn't always arrive carrying roses.

Sometimes it arrives carrying takeout.

Sometimes it sends a terrible meme at exactly the right moment.

Sometimes it sits on your kitchen counter until midnight while you tell the same story for the fifth time.

Sometimes it tells you the truth when you'd rather hear something easier.

Sometimes it lets you borrow a sweater and never asks for it back.

That one might technically be theft.

But I'm counting it.

I still believe in romantic love.

That's probably obvious.

I haven't become cynical enough to pretend I don't want it again someday.

I do.

But I don't want to wait for it before deciding my life is full.

Maybe that's what February was supposed to teach me.

Love isn't something you either have or don't.

It's something you learn to recognize.

And sometimes the love you've been searching for is already sitting across from you, stealing fries off your plate.

Words of Wisdom

Don't become so focused on finding romantic love that you overlook all the ways you're already loved. The people who show up, remember, listen, laugh with you, tell you the truth, and stay beside you through the unremarkable days are part of your love story too. A life doesn't begin when someone falls in love with you. You're already living one.

Until next Tuesday.

— S.