Love Without Reservations
I used to think unconditional love meant loving someone no matter what they did. No boundaries. No pushback. Just endless acceptance, forever, like a well that never runs dry. It took me years, and a few painful lessons, to understand that this version of unconditional love isn’t actually love. It’s self erasure wearing love’s clothes….
Somewhere along the way, most of us picked up a set of “rules” about what love is supposed to feel like. Movies gave us some. Songs gave us some. A few probably came from a heartbroken cousin at a family gathering. The problem is, a lot of those rules are wrong. And when your real…
A friend of mine once asked me, “How did you know? Like, the actual moment you knew you loved him?” I opened my mouth to answer and realized… there wasn’t one moment. There were five. And most of them didn’t feel like what I expected love to feel like at all. Nobody talks about this…
I used to think love was supposed to feel like fireworks. Every time. All the time. So when the fireworks calmed down a few months into a relationship, I panicked. I thought something was wrong. I thought maybe I didn’t love him after all. Turns out, I just didn’t understand what love actually feels like….
I never thought I would be the kind of person who looks forward to grocery shopping. Genuinely, for most of my adult life, the grocery store was something I got through. A chore. Something that sat on the Sunday to-do list between laundry and calling my mother back. I would go in, get what I…
I have started this letter a hundred times. In my head, mostly. In the shower. On the drive to work when a song comes on that sounds exactly like what being with you feels like. I have composed entire paragraphs in the dark at two in the morning while you slept next to me completely…
Nobody told me it would feel this quiet. That is the thing nobody prepares you for. You spend years bracing for love. Gripping it tight so it does not leave. Monitoring it constantly for signs that something is about to go wrong. Reading between every line of every text message like there is a secret…
You make dinner, remember the small things, say the kind words. And your partner shrugs, changes the subject, or gets strangely cold. If you are wondering how to love someone who doesn’t know how to receive love, you are not doing it wrong, and you are not alone. Here is the short version. People who…
Finding someone you truly love changes everything. Suddenly, you love someone deeply, but you also cannot find a single second of actual peace. You might notice your spouse staring off into space or shutting down, and you just know something is wrong. You ask what is up. They say, “Nothing.” But it is never nothing. The…
My husband David is not a talker. I knew this about him when I married him. I told myself I was okay with it. I am a words person. I write for a living. I say I love you the way some people breathe, automatically, constantly, without thinking. And David, bless him, will look at…