The Kind of Love That Actually Keeps Us Going

Every February, my social media fills up with roses and couples and heart-shaped everything. People dressed up. Fancy dinners. Big declarations.

And I don’t know. It’s not that I don’t like it. It just always makes me think about a different kind of love. The kind that doesn’t photograph well.

A few weeks ago, I was running late. Which I hate and strive not to be, but the morning got away from me. I had too many things in my hands, my brain was already somewhere else, and I was doing that thing where you’re technically moving fast but it still feels like you’re behind.

My neighbor was outside shoveling more of last week’s snow. She looked at me for a second and said, “You look like you need someone to tell you you’re doing fine.”

It caught me off guard.

I laughed and said thank you, but it stuck with me. Longer than I expected.

It wasn’t some huge moment. She probably forgot about it five minutes later. But I didn’t. Because in that moment, I felt seen. Not fixed. Not saved. Just… seen.

And I think about that a lot.

Because when I look back at the times I’ve felt okay — not perfect, just okay — it’s almost always because of small things like that.

A friend sending me something dumb that made them think of me. Someone checking in. Someone remembering.

It doesn’t make the hard stuff disappear. You’re still tired. You’re still stressed. Life is still life.

But it takes the edge off.

And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that kind of love shows up in more places than we even notice.

Family love can be complicated. It doesn’t always look warm and easy. Sometimes it comes with history. Sometimes it’s still finding its way. But even then, it can show up in small ways. A familiar joke. A quick call. Someone remembering something about you that you didn’t realize mattered.

It doesn’t have to be flawless to be meaningful.

And friendship — that kind of love deserves so much more credit than it gets. There’s something incredibly comforting about the people who choose you. Not because they have to, but because they want to. They see you at your most put together and your most exhausted. They sit with you in both.

No pressure. No performance.

Just presence.

I think we’re taught to look for love in big moments. But most of the time, it isn’t big.

It’s ordinary.

It’s someone standing in their yard, holding a snow shovel, taking five seconds to remind you that you’re doing okay.

And maybe that doesn’t seem like much.

But sometimes, it’s everything.