I’ve been thinking about the word “love” lately.
How it used to feel so heavy, almost sacred. A sacrifice. It use to feel like it carried weight in your chest when you said it, and responsibility in your hands when you meant it. Now it feels like it gets tossed around so casually it barely means anything at all.
People say it after a few good conversations, after a handful of moments, like it’s something that grows overnight instead of something that’s built, tested, broken, and rebuilt again. It used to be rare. Reserved. Something you didn’t give away easily because it actually meant something when you did.
I think that’s what I miss the most, though. The rarity of it.
The way love used to be something you might only feel for a few people in your entire life, and that was enough. More than enough. It wasn’t about collecting connections or labeling every strong feeling as love. It was about depth, not quantity. About knowing that when you said it, you were saying something that couldn’t be undone or replaced.
Now it feels diluted. Like the word has been stretched so thin trying to cover everything that it no longer fully holds anything & maybe people don’t even realize what’s been lost in that. Maybe they’ve never felt the difference.
But, me? I have. I’ve felt it. I’ve carried it. I’ve given it and received it.
I remember what it felt like when love meant certainty. When it wasn’t said lightly because it wasn’t felt lightly. When it took time to grow into, and even more time to understand. There was something grounding about that. Something honest. Something so real.
I think the world misses that, even if it doesn’t know how to say it. I think people are craving something real but keep settling for something easy, because easy is everywhere now. Convenience is everywhere. Love isn’t easy and it isn’t ever convenient.
Real love was never easy. It was saved for the brave few who risked it all in the name of love. It was intentional. It was chosen. It was proven.
Maybe that’s why the word feels so empty now. Not because love itself has changed, but because the way we use it has.
I don’t want a version of love that’s convenient or temporary or spoken just to fill silence. I want the kind that makes you careful with it. The kind that makes you pause before you say it, because you understand what you’re offering when you do.
The kind that still feels rare.
This is my first time positing my words here. Be kind, please.