Love, Without the Performance
I’ve been thinking a lot this past week about love. Not in a romantic, hearts-and-flowers kind of way. More in a quiet, noticing way.
Valentine’s Day has never fully landed for me, and I think I know why.
Childhood, Expectations, and Valentine’s Day
I didn’t grow up in a house where Valentine’s Day felt easy or joyful. Mom wasn’t really into it, and as a kid I didn’t understand that it may have come from disappointment. And yet, I do remember her making sure we had valentines for our class, and I even recall a few times when she brought home boxes of chocolates. Maybe Dad missed the mark, and over time the day seemed to carry more expectation than connection. I absorbed that without even realizing it.
That kind of thing has a way of shaping you.
Letting Go of Valentine’s Day Pressure
What feels important to say, though, is that I didn’t carry that forward in the same way.
Adam has always been good at making the reservation and letting me know he’s planned lunch or dinner at one of our favourite restaurants, and when the kids were younger, we made it about them too. That’s when I leaned into the themed meals at home, the pink mashed potatoes, the heart-shaped vegetables. It felt playful and intentional, not forced.
Those moments mattered to me.
For a long time, I thought I’d let go of expectations around Valentine’s Day about ten years ago. But if I’m being honest, it was probably closer to twenty. I just didn’t have the language for it yet.
Love Without Performance
What changed was this: I stopped looking to Valentine’s Day to define how loved I was or to measure it through one grand gesture.
Instead, I started noticing that the love that actually sustains us rarely shows up in big, polished moments. It shows up in consistency. In care that doesn’t need announcing. In showing up when it would be easier not to. In choosing one another in ways that don’t photograph well.
Again and again.
Love, Island Style
I’ve always lived on the Island, and I think that’s shaped how I see love. It’s quieter here. Less performative. More rooted. Maybe that’s generational, but it feels more authentic to me now. There was a time when I thought love needed to be proven or validated from the outside.
Especially in winter, when life slows down enough that you can really see what’s essential.
I don’t think love needs a stage.
I think it needs attention. And time. And a willingness to show up, even when no one is clapping.
So Valentine’s Day, for me now, isn’t something I opt into or out of. It’s just a pause. A moment to notice what’s already present. The steady love. The imperfect love. The kind that doesn’t need proving.
And honestly, that feels like enough.
Lots of love,
Marsha
