We are taught to starve ourselves waiting for that one big love.
The kind that hits with fireworks and your favorite song exploding inside.
The one that makes you weak in the knees
and makes sense of everything that came before.
We grow up hearing it from our parents.
Hearing it in songs.
Seeing it in movies.
And watching it staged perfectly on social media.
And so, we wait.
We dream.
We pine.
And while we do, we walk right past the smaller loves—
the ones who slip in quietly wearing ordinary clothes.
We overlook the way a friend remembers our favorite food.
How someone sits beside us in silence when we’re too tired to talk,
or sits and listens when what we do say unintentionally hurts.
How a voice softens when it says our name.
How someone unsuspectingly holds eye contact a little too long,
and you find yourself catching your breath.
We tell ourselves those moments are nice, but they’re not it.
But what if they are it,
and we’re letting them pass, one by one?
And what about the love that doesn’t announce itself at all?
The kind that creeps in through a crack when you’re not looking.
The kind that startles you because it’s deeper than you thought you could hold.
The kind that scares you—
not because it’s wrong,
but because it’s real.
And real love?
Real love will ask things of you.
It will demand you show up.
It will dare you to risk.
It will force you to be seen.
Love is not always a tidal wave.
Sometimes it’s quiet.
A slow, steady trickle.
A hand on your back guiding you.
A warm meal you didn’t ask for.
Someone showing up on your worst day and refusing to leave,
regardless of how pissed off you are.
And sometimes, it’s simply letting you speak without interrupting you.
This is the type of love that steadies us.
That tells us we are safe enough to breathe.
But love does not exist only to keep us safe.
There is also the side of love that asks more of us.
The kind that will not let us hide.
Sometimes it’s loud:
rattling the walls you’ve built to feel safe,
shaking you awake from the sleep you didn’t know you were in.
Sometimes it’s quiet:
a truth laid gently in your hands,
a look that lingers until you finally face yourself.
Whether it whispers or roars, it finds you.
It pulls you into the light before you’re ready,
shatters the walls you’ve built to feel safe,
and asks for more than you planned to give.
Don’t starve yourself waiting for some grand future version of love.
What’s in your hands right now is enough.
Enough to fill you.
Enough to sustain you.
Enough to remind you that even in the absence of perfect conditions,
you are not alone.
If we keep waiting for the cinematic arrival of love,
we risk going hungry in the middle of the feast.
The table is already set. Just look around you.
The love you’ve been hoping for might already be here—
quiet and steady.
Or fierce enough to pull you into the light before you’re ready.
To break down the walls you’ve built.
To ask for more than you ever thought you could give.
Love isn’t always comfortable.
But it’s always alive.
And it’s almost always closer than you think.
