Valentine’s Day has never been my favorite holiday. It can bring up a lot—joy, pressure, grief, comparison. For some, it’s a sweet day filled with excitement. For others, it can feel heavy and quietly isolating.
The expectation to perform love on a specific day can be exhausting. When love is scheduled, measured, or displayed on demand, it can start to feel forced instead of freely given.
Each year, love gets compressed into a single day of gestures, gifts, and posts. We’re tempted to compare our lives to what we see around us and wonder if we’re somehow missing out. We start measuring love instead of living it—and that pressure can make love feel less real, not more.
That’s when I find myself asking:
If love had less pressure, would it feel more real?
When I look at life without the filter of expectation, I notice something important: the love that sustains us rarely announces itself. It shows up quietly—in small gestures, in patience, in consistency, in choosing to show up again and again.
It’s ordinary.
And that’s exactly what makes it powerful.
My partner, Art, doesn’t hate Valentine’s Day—but he’s always been clear about what love actually is. He often says that love is what you do on random Tuesdays. It’s how you treat people when no one is watching.
To him, love isn’t about grand gestures or single moments. It’s about consistency. Gratitude. Showing up daily. What you give, day after day, matters far more than what you receive on one specific date.
One day simply can’t carry what everyday love is meant to hold.
Art has also taught me something essential about self-love.
Loving yourself isn’t indulgent or flashy. It doesn’t require perfection. It’s honoring your boundaries. Staying kind to yourself. Choosing rest, honesty, and forgiveness. It’s allowing yourself—and others—the grace to be imperfect, and then letting that be enough.
When we remove pressure—from ourselves and from others—love softens. And softness is not weakness.
Love doesn’t need a holiday to exist. It doesn’t need loud declarations or perfect timing. It doesn’t even require a significant other.
Love is already happening—in the quiet moments you notice.
In the sun rising or setting.
In the comfort of a pet.
In kindness shared with a neighbor.
In choosing peace for yourself.
Love was never meant to be one day a year.
It just needs presence to be felt.
