Looking for love

I started writing about love last summer. I sat in the cold basement of the Door County farmhouse owned by Mike’s aunt and uncle, perched with my laptop on a wobbly wooden stool next to a fridge covered in old photos and the year’s calendar. The washing machine hummed along and my kids were unaware of my exact location. It was the perfect setting for a little navel gazing. 

But as is often the case with writing and living, you can’t actually write about something with any sort of authority without having lived it. And so this draft sat untouched for nearly a year.

Then this summer, in the same farmhouse where I started writing about love, I realized that maybe it was time to begin again. 

The summer I began writing about love, Mike had just quit his job, and with impeccable timing, too. Because a few months prior, during a particularly anxious patch, I had finally started feeling the strain of his many long days at work.

We were carefully orchestrated ships passing in the night, and I began to wonder if that’s all we’d ever been. I knew we were generally moving towards the same targets, but we quickly became just two people giving each other daily reports. In the morning he would rise for work and leave before my alarm went off. By nighttime we were both such zombies we could barely speak. 

Mike worked more weekends than I could count. I grew accustomed to parenting in overdrive, organizing day trips and play dates like it was my second job. Despite my burgeoning social calendar, from which Mike was mostly unintentionally, sometimes intentionally excluded, I had become lonely in my marriage.

Things got better when Mike quit his job. But my loneliness persisted. I didn’t know how to parent alongside him, so accustomed we had become to the other being away. 

I didn’t know what to do with his now constant presence in my (our) house—his chipper morning greetings when I craved caffeine and quiet. The way he expected our kids to figure things out instead of running to their rescue like I, admittedly, too often do.

I had gotten so used to being alone that I no longer knew how to let him in. Could you fall out of love with someone purely from their absence? I wondered. 

Desperate, I embarked upon a secret project I entitled “Looking for Love.” (In case you don’t know, whenever you’re about to try something new that may or may not work, it’s best to brand the heck out of it. And, being the stalwart marketing professional I am, I jumped at the chance to employ some catchy alliteration.) 

Instead of feeling lonely, I decided, I would simply Look for Love. Instead of feeling resentful for all of the time we’d spent apart, I would seek expressions of love for which I could feel grateful.

The very first day I began Looking for Love, I got stuck in a too-small dress I had bought for my older sister. It was hanging in my closet waiting to be given to her, but one morning while creating a pile of discarded clothing I decided to try it on.

I immediately regretted the decision. I realized, in a panic, I could no sooner pull the dress down over my hips than get it back over my shoulders. My head now covered with fabric, I called out for Mike. 

He entered the bedroom and gently tugged it back over my head, politely suppressing his laughter until we both cracked up.

There were other expressions of love that week too:

The piece of dark chocolate packed in my lunch, the light left on for me when out on a sunset walk with a friend.

As the months marched on, there were also days I drastically missed the mark. One day I became frustrated over a lack of shared commitment towards my fledgling garden. Even though Mike had never once expressed an interest in gardening, I soldiered on, expecting our tiny raised bed to be Pinterest-worthy within weeks. And for Mike to be an equally invested partner in the endeavor.

There was the anniversary trip it hailed during the times I had planned for us to explore the city. Sulking and maybe a little bored, I failed to realize the trip was everything Mike had been craving:  a chance to rest in each other’s presence. My excursions canceled, we bought a grocery store dinner the likes of which we used to enjoy in our early years: yogurt for me, a deli sandwich and chips for him, and a random mix of take-your-chances sushi for sharing. With hail pouring in the back door of the Airbnb, we cuddled on the couch and ate our make-shift picnic while watching old episodes of No Reservations. If we couldn’t explore our surroundings at least we could do so vicariously through the late and great Anthony Bourdain. It was what it was. When the storm subsided the next day, we walked around a local outdoor market and later, had the best Italian meal of our lives. 

Looking for Love hasn’t always been easy. It regularly requires creativity and the willingness to let go of what could be, in some faraway fantasy life. Without knowing what to expect, Looking for Love has become a chance to hold onto what is, and call it good. 

On the days when I crave Mike’s words I see how he offers himself in acts of service. His love is in the tea he brings to me without my asking when I’m studying late at night. His love finds me when he pulls my car into the garage, out of the pouring rain. It floats in on the piles of laundry he’s washed and in the mail he’s left for me to check, just because he knows I love the sense of possibility each day’s arrivals bring.

Sometimes seeing Mike’s love in unexpected ways challenges me to rise to the occasion. I attempt to keep my bathroom counter somewhat clear, and readily apologize for the things I said while hangry. I leave the light on when he’s out late and feign alertness when he comes home eager to talk. 

Looking for Love has become a daily pursuit, a hidden challenge to embrace all that Mike and others have to offer. The exercise has sharpened my vision. Once I started Looking for Love, it became harder to unsee.

I began to see love in my daughter’s embrace, in a card from a co-worker, and in the times my MBA friends and I high-five over a spreadsheet or squabble over asset allocation. (I’ve never felt so seen, by the way, than in that moment. Finance dorks unite!)

There’s love in a friend who bravely cares for our city’s homeless population with humor and sass and grace. And there’s the fierce love of another friend, whose hands are full but she keeps waking up and doing her best and loving on her kids regardless of the hurdles she may face. (I see you, K!)

When I started Looking for Love, I started seeing it in myself too. I saw how hard I worked in school, giving my best to my teammates. I saw myself reading to my kids each night, even when I fought to keep my eyes open. I saw myself granting Mike space and quiet on Father’s Day, when all he wanted was alone time to sit on our back deck and smoke ribs all day. I saw it in the snow peas I nurtured from seed to table and the times I listened to kids, friends, and coworkers with my best listening ears on, no advice given. 

It’s been a year since I started writing about love and since then, cultivating and recognizing love has become even more important. In a world where mass shootings have become commonplace, where women are no longer in charge of their own bodies, and where caring for our earth has become an afterthought, to offer and accept these little seeds of love feels like a thousand tiny acts of rebellion. 

To pull a radish from the soil and marvel at its wholeness. To apologize to my kids for yelling. To flirt with Mike while unloading the dishwasher. To eschew feelings of scarcity and instead invest in dates with Gray, during which I may play dodgeball against a pack of skilled adolescents or eat McDonald’s in the car while watching funny cat videos. To go beyond my comfort zone because there are memories to be made.

Each moment of looking for and receiving love has become a chance to commune with the divine, in whatever form She takes. Looking for love in a world that has forgotten to see it takes courage but the rewards are great. May we all Look for Love and when we find it, take every chance to hold onto what is, and call it good.