She didn’t hesitate as she spoke, but she held her breath as she finished. Her words trailed off in a sort of scared silence. I wasn’t looking at her, but I knew the look on her face. It was the look of one who had just said something risky without knowing how it was received. She looked straight at the road as she spoke, but would reach over and emphatically touch the top of my leg. Her touch was firm, but gentle, much like her words. They were gentle, but carried the heavy weight of emotion. Or perhaps, it was my emotion that was heavy with confusion and internal conflict and a striking realization of what I needed to do.

I didn’t say anything. There wasn’t really anything to say. I stared out the window, watching the houses zip by us, vacillating between being so grateful for her that I could cry and being [slightly] annoyed that she was right. We rode along in silence for a few minutes, before I sighed and turned to face her. She answered my wordless sigh with a smile that said, “I know. and it’s OK”.
She was right. I knew it and she knew it. And she knew that I knew it.
Before we parted ways, she said, “I love you.” Those words hung in the air, swirling around with force and intention, because, without question, I believed them.

Before this season in my life, I believed that love looked a lot differently than what it does. I believed that love always agreed with you or made you feel good about whatever you were doing — right or not right. But that’s not true. That’s not risky. And love is.

Love is the grimace that waits for the response to the hard to hear truth. Love is the 20 minute car ride to speak in protected and uninterrupted silence in the midst of a busy day. Love is the hug that wraps you so tightly on a bad day that the bad just melts away. Love with action and intention, not love in theory.

When love is a theory, it’s safe, it’s free of risk. But love in the brain changes nothing. — Bob Goff, “Love Does”