Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what love really is.
Over the years, I’ve met many people who’ve gone through relationship chaos that left them questioning everything. The kind of stories that begin with, “But he said he loved me…” or “If she loved me, she wouldn’t have done that…”
It makes you wonder: what is love, really? Why does it seem so clear for some people and so confusing for others? Why do some relationships feel like winning the love lottery while others feel like holding counterfeit tickets?
Most of us have felt that warm flutter in the chest—the pull toward someone that makes us think, Ah, this must be love. But is that feeling enough to call it love?
Then there are other moments when love appears in a completely different way. No fireworks. No grand gestures. No dramatic declarations.
Just something steady. Quiet. Almost ordinary.
The kind of love that doesn’t always feel like love in the cinematic sense. But when you see it, something inside you pauses and says:
This looks like love.
And once you recognize it, the deeper question begins: how do we learn to hold that kind of love without losing ourselves?
The Day Love Walked into the Workshop
A few weeks ago, I was sitting in a car service lounge waiting for my car, minding my own business (okay, not really).
Then this man, maybe in his mid-70s, walks in looking clean, well-dressed, driving up in a Porsche. I notice him because, well, I notice things.
The receptionist greets him warmly.
“Hi Tom! Is there anything wrong with your Porsche?”
He smiles.
“No, I brought my wife’s Porsche. She thinks something’s wrong with the steering.”
They check the records. Apparently, the wife had mentioned it before, and the mechanic said there was no issue. But Tom doesn’t shrug it off.
He calmly says,
“She’s not comfortable with how it drives. I’d like it checked again.”
Then Tom steps outside and comes back with his wife. A graceful woman in her late 60s or early 70s. Calm. Soft-spoken. The kind of woman who looks like life has not always been easy, but she’s been loved right.
She explains her concern in a gentle, practical way.
Tom listens. Really listens. Then he turns to the receptionist and repeats,
“She’s uncomfortable with how it handles. I just want it checked and fixed.”
That was it.
No raised voices.
No eye-rolling.
No “You’re imagining things again.”
Just quiet advocacy.
When Love Speaks Quietly
While waiting, his wife says she’s going to Starbucks and asks if he wants anything.
He says, “Sure.”
She leaves, and I—ever the nosy one—walk over.
“Sorry,” I say, “I just have to say, I loved how you handled that. It was beautiful.”
He laughs.
I ask how long they’ve been married.
“Thirty years,” he says.
I tell him, “It’s really wonderful to see how you stand up for your wife.”
He smiles and replies simply,
“That’s what I should be doing.”
And that was it.
No long speech.
No deep explanation.
Just a man who believes that defending his wife and taking her seriously is normal.
I walked away thinking: this must be love.
Not the cinematic kind.
Not the kind that breaks your heart and leaves you crying to sad songs.
The simple, solid, everyday kind that looks like a man bringing in his wife’s car because she said it didn’t feel right.
That looks like love.
When I Was Trying to “Earn” Love
It reminded me of a woman I befriended during my own chaotic marriage. She was about ten years older than me, radiant, and from the outside her marriage looked peaceful. Not perfect, but steady.
At the time, I was in full “save my marriage” mode. Reading books. Praying. Overthinking every word I said. Trying to become the kind of wife a husband would finally want to come home to.
Spoiler: it didn’t work.
I looked at her and thought, She seems happy. Whatever she’s doing, I need to learn it. So I asked her, “How do you make your husband respect you? Listen to you? Love you?”
She looked confused. Then she said something that completely disarmed me.
“I don’t make him respect me,” she said. “I respect him, and he respects me. Why wouldn’t I? Why wouldn’t he listen? He’s my husband. We listen to each other.”
It was so simple it almost irritated me.
Here I was, trying to engineer the perfect marriage with strategy, sacrifice, and self-erasure, and she was describing something that just worked. No emotional gymnastics, no walking on eggshells, no convincing, and no performing.
What I was trying to manufacture, she already had, effortlessly.
It didn’t scream “LOVE” in neon lights. But again, it looked like love.
The Love That Survived Divorce
And then there’s a different kind of love — the kind that doesn’t stay in a marriage, but somehow survives it.
I once met a woman, let’s call her Maria. She divorced her husband after years of emotional distance. They tried therapy — all kinds — but the disconnect remained. Parenting two young kids felt like they were running on fumes.
When she finally said, “I want a divorce,” he didn’t explode or punish her. He just sighed and said, “I don’t want this either, but if you’re unhappy, I’ll help make it right.”
They went through mediation, not war. They split things fairly. He made sure she kept the house so the kids could stay in their school. When she went back to nursing school, he picked up more custody time without asking for a medal.
Later, when he started dating again, he introduced his new partner to her first — out of respect — before letting the kids meet her.
At her graduation, he showed up with his new wife, cheering for her from the stands.
When she asked him why he’d always been so gracious, he said something simple:
“Because I love you. You and the kids will always be my family. Seeing you thrive makes me proud.”
She didn’t want him back, but she realized something deeper: love hadn’t disappeared. It had simply changed shape. It stepped back, but it didn’t disappear.
And somehow, that too looked like love.
So… What Is Love, Really?
These moments made me ask deeper questions.
What is love, really? How do we know we are in a loving relationship when love isn’t a person, a structure, or a neat checklist? It’s more like air. It moves and flows, sees and understands.
Sometimes it’s loud and passionate, quiet and practical, and shows up as flowers and kisses. Other times it shows up as, “Text me when you get home,” or “I already booked your doctor’s appointment.”
And sometimes, it simply doesn’t show up at all, no matter how hard we try.
That’s the part that gets me.
Because maybe love is not something we earn or chase—it’s something that happens to us.
Almost like a gift. Almost like a blessing. Almost like everything in between.
But then, why do some people get it and others don’t? Why do some get a Porsche kind of love while others get the broken-down jalopy version that never leaves the driveway?
If love is a blessing, how do we open ourselves to receive it? If it’s a gift, what makes us worthy of it? And if it is everything, how do we express it without burning out?
I don’t have all the answers (shocking, I know), but lets untangle it together.
If Love Were a Blessing, How Do We Receive It?
If love were a blessing, I don’t think we would “achieve” it the way we achieve a degree or a promotion. We won’t grind our way into love. We won’t hustle our way into being cherished.
Maybe love isn’t something we climb toward. Maybe it’s something that descends when we’ve made space for it.
Maybe love comes when we’ve been stripped of pretense. When our hearts have cracked open enough times to let humility, kindness, and truth sneak in. When we’re no longer chasing validation or controlling outcomes, but finally learning to see ourselves clearly.
Love, like any blessing, needs a vessel. A heart soft enough to receive it and strong enough to hold it without crushing it. It doesn’t grow in perfection. It grows in gratitude and breathes through forgiveness, not fear.
So maybe the real work isn’t to find love, but to become someone who can recognize it when it appears.
Because blessings often come disguised as ordinary things. A steady presence. A kind word. Someone who remembers how you take your coffee. A partner who says, “If it matters to you, it matters to me.”
Maybe that’s the quiet miracle of love. We don’t earn it. We align with it.
If Love Were a Gift, How Would We Be Worthy of It?
A blessing feels like something poured over your life from above. You didn’t work for it. It just showed up like grace.
A gift is a little different.
A gift implies intention. Someone thought of you. Chose you. Wrapped something with your name on it. There is a giver and a receiver. Both have a part to play.
So maybe love as a blessing simply falls on you like rain. Random. Refreshing. Unexplainable.
But love as a gift asks a question: Are you open enough to receive this? Do you believe you deserve this? Will you care for it once it’s in your hands?
That’s where worthiness comes in. Not the kind that demands perfection, but the kind rooted in self-respect and truth. The kind that says, “I may not be perfect, but I can love deeply, show up honestly, and stay present even when it’s uncomfortable.”
We can’t receive love with clenched fists or a barricaded heart.
At some point, we have to unclench. We have to risk being seen. We have to trust that we won’t collapse if someone actually treats us well.
Maybe being “worthy” of love isn’t about being flawless, beautiful, or endlessly accommodating. Maybe it’s about being real. Bringing our whole self to the table and saying, “This is me. I will love you as I am, and I hope you will do the same.”
Maybe love as a blessing feels like grace that meets you where you are. Love as a gift feels like grace that trusts you to hold it well.
If Love Was Everything in Between, How Do We Express It Without Burning Out?
Let’s be honest. Loving people can be exhausting. Especially when you are the one always understanding, always forgiving, always doing the emotional heavy lifting while someone else lounges on the sofa of your patience.
We’re told love is a verb. And it is. But verbs require action, and action requires energy. And sometimes, that energy runs out.
So maybe the trick isn’t to love harder, but to love lighter.
To love from fullness, not depletion. To express love in ways that do not drain us, but sustain us.
Love doesn’t always have to look like grand sacrifice or constant fixing. Sometimes it’s setting a boundary or staying silent instead of saying the thing you can never take back.
Sometimes it’s walking away instead of performing emotional CPR on something that has been dead for years.
Maybe the “everything in between” kind of love isn’t about doing more. It’s about being more present. Not about constantly giving, but giving honestly. Not about proving devotion, but preserving your peace.
Because real, healthy love circulates. It gives and it receives, breathes, and makes space for rest. It does not demand your burnout as proof of your sincerity.
Maybe the secret to expressing love without wearing out is remembering that love was never meant to be a performance. It’s meant to be a rhythm. A flow. A shared heartbeat, not a solo marathon.
The kind of love that feeds both souls instead of draining one dry. This must look like love.
This Looks Like Love
I feel that when love is real, you don’t spend your whole life guessing. You may still doubt yourself sometimes, but deep down, you know, and it looks like it.
Love doesn’t just talk. It shows up. It remembers. It defends. It listens. It adjusts. It grows. It makes room for you to exist as a whole human being, not a project.
Love is grace that meets us where we are and trust us to hold it well. It is present, preserves our peace, and feeds our soul.
Sometimes, it looks like a man taking his wife’s Porsche to the shop because she said something didn’t feel right.
That day, in a car service lounge, that looked like love.
Your turn: Think back over your own relationships, past or present. What moments looked like love to you? And where did you realize you were trying to call something “love” that never actually behaved like it?
