On Love Quietly- A February Series
February 14 always seems to get louder than the rest of the month.
Flowers at grocery store entrances. Heart-shaped displays taking the place of ordinary things. Reservations filling up weeks in advance. Social feeds slowly turn more into highlight reels of dinners, gifts, and carefully chosen words.
The day arrives with an unspoken question dangling in the air:
Where do you fit in all of this?
Some people find this answer easy. Other, a bit more complicated.
Because love, in the realest of forms, rarely lines up neatly with a date on the calendar.
“Sometimes the loudest part of Valentine’s Day is the comparison we never meant to make”
And yes, there are people spending today alone and they’re not lonely.
Some people in relationships are still feeling uncertain. There are people missing someone.
Some even people healing from hurt.
There’s even a group of people who are waiting and trying not to think too hard about what they expected their life to look like by now.
Then there is the smallest sliver of us who exist somewhere in between–not fully invested in the day, but also not entirely untouched by it either.
I’ve never been someone who makes much of Valentine’s Day. It’s always felt a bit out of reach, like a celebration happening just outside the bubble of my life.
But being honest with myself, there’s always a small, shy part of me that wondered what it might feel like to be surprised by it.
Flowers sent unexpectedly. Being chosen in a way that wasn’t loudly announced ahead of time or even asked for.
Not really anything grand.
Just something that said, I thought of you.
It’s not really disappointing. It’s not exactly longing either.
A quiet hope feels about right.
Honestly I think a lot of us live somewhere in that space.
Not fully bought out to the spectacle that is this day. Not measuring out worth against bouquets or reservations. But still carrying that small desire of the day– the way it asks us, just briefly, to notice where love is present and where it’s not.
And maybe the quietest truth is this:
Love doesn’t always show up on schedule.
It might be a message from a friend.
It might be the comfort of your own routine.
It might simply be getting through the day without being unkind to yourself.
“Honestly I think a lot of us live somewhere in that space.”
Not fully bought out to the spectacle that is this day. Not measuring out worth against bouquets or reservations. But still carrying that small desire of the day– the way it asks us, just briefly, to notice where love is present and where it’s not.
And maybe the quietest truth is this:
Love doesn’t always show up on schedule.
It might be a message from a friend.
It might be the comfort of your own routine.
It might simply be getting through the day without being unkind to yourself.
If at any point today feels ordinary to you, that’s okay.
If the weight of today feels heavy, that’s okay too.
If today passes unnoticed, you’re not missing anything you were supposed to feel.
Love isn’t measured by what a random single day brings.
And being seen–truely seen–rarely happens on a schedule.
For now, it’s enough to let the day be what it is. Zero expectations. Zero comparison. Just another quiet place to notice what’s already here.
With love,
Quill.
