#loveis

There’s so much to say about paying attention to things, to people, to experiences, basically the intentional act of being in the present, and consequently with someone else. People are basically a world on their own with unique interests, eccentricities, and nuances in personalities that make them who they are.

Have you heard of the term sonder? It means the realisation that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own. Learning this made me realise how we’re all just a little outside worlds of every person we will ever meet, as if lingering at the door waiting to be welcomed, and we’re all traveling streets filled with homes you’ll never get inside of unless you knock. Which is why I love knocking on doors and asking questions so much.

There’s so much tenderness and casual cruelty in realising that you will never ever get to know someone deeply, even those you hold close to you or those people you saw yourself in once. No wonder we get bruised really badly when our worlds collide with someone we consider a twin flame or a soulmate, only for them to turn out to be just another comet passing by or a meteorite crashing onto us.

Unless we're two massive blackholes or two galaxies colliding with each other, then that's a different kind of story, where we become one instead of a cosmic explosion, but hey, not all love stories look the same.

But the beauty of such transient moments is that, if we could just pay a little more attention and consequently find a way to capture them, we might just get a lifetime of memories to look back on, even though our footprints have already been washed away from the shore.

The Act of Noticing

I’m rarely fond of gifts, even though it is my primary love language, and how I love it when they matter. The way my heart explodes when someone gives me something, knowing that I will surely like it. The quiet love that comes from “this reminded me of you” and “I think you will like this.”

There was a time when someone had gifted me the book Swann’s Way by Proust just because I had mentioned the term “Proustian Moment” in passing during a conversation. When I asked them if they’d read it, they told me that they hadn’t, but they bothered to get it for me, knowing that I would. Someone has gifted me special stationery with cats and Taylor Swift-themed jewelry just because. Someone has memorized my love for carnations and daisies and has gifted them to me on Valentine’s Day without me asking. Someone has written me a poem, the simplest one they could muster with that humble premonition of “I’m never good with words,” only for it to become my favourite prose. Someone is sending you cat photos of stray cats or videos of the recent beach they’ve visited, knowing that it heals you in some type of way. Someone sends you silly reels of cats and memes every day, if not randomly, because “why not?” I think to be loved is to be remembered.

The Language of Simply Co-Existing

Consequently, when someone finally opens their door and asks for your presence, especially in spaces they consider sacred. You become part of the world you were once just outside of. The bonds you build in the midnight silences, buying time until one of you falls asleep, the lingering when the meals are over but the conversation continues, and you’re left with this certain understanding of simply co-existing with someone. Those moments when a friend would ask me to call just to talk to me about their recent date with that guy I still haven’t met, someone had asked me two photos of similarly looking Minecraft builds just to ask which one’s better knowing I’m fond of symmetries, someone had asked me to watch their video game streams because I’m a “lucky charm,” despite not knowing what’s going on half the time, someone has familiarised the books that I’d certainly like for reasons that I still don’t know still they always turn out right, someone has read your favourite book thinking it’s the closest they could ever get to reading your mind. I think to be loved is to be included and considered, as much as to love is to be interested, and especially have someone be a part of the weaves and intricacies of the lives we try to live.