Love is Quiet: And Sometimes It Involves Tea
It's February, and you know what that means: love is in the air. Hearts, roses, chocolates-they're all around us. But for some of us, it's also a time to stop and contemplate what love really means, not just for others, but for me too.
We are often told what love should resemble: large gestures, grand moments of romance, and any affection which will fit in a card or song. In reality? Love can feel a lot smaller than that, much simpler, quieter. It's in those instances when I take a moment and I ask myself, "How am I really doing today?" It's then that I pause and breathe, letting myself take that little space to just rest and be able to recharge once more.
Over the past year, I’ve realized that love isn’t only about showing up for the people around me—it’s about showing up for myself, especially when things feel uncertain or exhausting. It’s about appreciating the small things: like a warm cup of tea when I’m stressed, or stepping outside for a quick walk to clear my head. And then there's the little, quieter ways in which this manifests into self-compassion. But for this kind of self-love to actually mean more — well, it's a whole different story.
There is that other love — a variety born out of loss. Somewhere over the years, I learned love isn't all presence; it can be absence. We tend to think of love as an immediate give-and-receive interaction ,but love resides in the traces, too. It is through grief that the love of our lost loved ones is held onto and learned to be treasured in new ways. When physical presence is gone, the love given and connections made continue to shape us.
One of my favorite quotes is by Andrew Garfield: "Grief is all the unexpressed love we didn’t get to give." I love it because it creates a reflection that grief wasn't just missing a person but was so much about how in love, we still are with them — the things we didn't say, those moments we didn't share, the affection we never showed. A reminder, indeed, that love is not in the big, visible gestures sometimes; it falls into quiet spaces in the things one wishes they had said or done but never got the chance to do.
When I think of the relationships dear to me-friends, family, or even of myself-I realize that love is not just about giving but also receiving. Of course, it is also about sharing and building trust in each other and holding a space when vulnerabilities strike.
This February, in the name of love, I'm reminding myself to look for it in the quiet, the small, and the everyday, beyond the grand gestures. For me, love shows up in ways I need — be it for myself or others. And that is where true magic happens, when we make room for love in those simple and real ways. Even in grief, love continues to shape us, teaching us to hold space for both joy and sorrow.
