Someone you know spent three weeks planning the perfect Valentine’s Day, including dinner at your favorite restaurant, flowers timed to arrive at work, and a card with the right words in the right order. Someone else remembered, without being asked, that you’ve been sleeping badly and texted at 9 PM to see if you were okay. Both are love, so why does only one of them get a holiday?
Valentine’s Day celebrates the performance, the gesture you can photograph, the story you can tell later, and there is some value in that. It usually gives a partner bragging rights over the gestures made, but love doesn’t work that way, at least it shouldn’t.
Love shows up in the middle of an ordinary Tuesday. It’s the friend who remembers a little thing that you mentioned once and forgot about and brings it up months later. The partner who still asks questions about your work even though the answer is usually “fine.” The person who doesn’t need a crisis to check in, who just does, steadily, because you matter. Love more often than not looks like showing up when there’s nothing to celebrate.
We romanticize intensity. The early days when everything feels urgent. The sparks, the momentum, the way someone can rearrange your week with a single text. That kind of electricity is real, and it matters. But it’s the easy part.
What’s harder, what actually builds something, is the decision to stay interested when things flatten out. To protect time for someone when your calendar is screaming. To keep showing up when the relationship has become routine and there’s no reward for it. This applies everywhere, not just romance.
The strongest partnerships aren’t sustained by dramatic moments; they are sustained by follow-through. Trust doesn’t grow from promises; it grows from patterns. Care isn’t proven by what we say when people are watching; it’s proven by what we do when no one is.
So maybe the question today isn’t “what do you do on Valentine’s Day?” or “who do you love?” Perhaps it’s who you choose consistently, even if it’s inconvenient. Not who excites you most, or who looks best on paper, but who do you make time for when you’re exhausted. What relationships do you tend to when there’s no anniversary, no milestone, no reason, except that they matter? And what do you plan to do to nourish those relationships every day?
Once you have that answer, remember, love isn’t only what you give, it’s also what you allow yourself to receive. Many of us are excellent at showing up for others, but terrible at letting others show up for us. We’ll move mountains to help a friend, but deflect when someone tries to do the same. We’re comfortable being needed and deeply uncomfortable being seen as needing.
But a real connection is based on mutuality. It requires trusting that support isn’t pity nor an imposition, and someone asking, “Are you okay?” isn’t an interrogation, it’s care. That being vulnerable doesn’t make you a burden; it makes you human.
So, if today is useful for anything, maybe it’s this: notice what you’re loyal to. Not just who you love, but where you actually invest your attention. What you maintain when there’s nothing shiny about it. Who you protect space for, even when it costs you something. And whether you give yourself the same patience, the same grace, the same second chances you so readily offer everyone else.
Because love, the kind that actually lasts, isn’t about one perfect day. It’s what continues when no one’s keeping score.
“Love is shown more in deeds than in words.” – Saint Ignatius of Loyola
Who in your life deserves more consistency, not just today, but tomorrow? If this resonated, I’d love to hear your take. Feel free to comment, share, or send me a note.
Happy Valentine’s Day,
Vijay