What Love Looks Like at 76
I’m on my way down to restock the Little Free Library and pass AdventureMan, who always asks me why I love him. It’s hard to keep it fresh. It’s hard to find new answers to that question, but this time, it’s right there in front of me.
“Who likes to clean out the litter box?” I ask. He looks puzzled.
“No-one!” I answer my own question, but I continue “I love you because you clean out the litter box in hot humid weather, even when you don’t want to, and give the cats a nice clean place to poop! I love you because you do it faithfully, and I don’t have to do it! It’s not romantic, but I consider it TRUE LOVE!”
It makes him laugh. I am not the romantic young bride he met in Heidelberg and married six weeks later. I am pragmatic and grounded. I know what matters.
We have always had cats. I used to do the litter boxes, and when I got pregnant, he took it over because pregnant women can get a disease that can infect the baby. Around when our son turned 18 he had a perplexed look on his face and asked me “just how long after the baby is born can you scoop litter again?” and we both laughed.
True love is bigger than diamonds or white roses or wonderful perfume. True love is scooping the cat litter and cleaning out the litter boxes. Thank you, AdventureMan.
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This really struck a nerve. I couldn’t agree more. True love, to me, is found in the mundane, in those unremarkable routines, meeting expectations without a second thought. I love my wife, and every day I find myself wondering what she sees in me. To me, she’s perfect… caring, loving, selfless, and selfish in all the right ways. She loves our kids more than her own peace of mind. And here I am, just doing the expected, conveniencing my wife through life year after year, never feeling like anything I do truly warrants being seen. But your post stirred something I’ve always known deep down to be true—that love isn’t just in the photographable moments, where it can be seen, literally.
Maybe, just maybe, love is in the very things I’ve overlooked in myself, breathing in the mundane, in meeting expectations without even realizing it. That’s where it’s truly seen.
Honestly, being sure of love feels like taking it for granted. Maybe just rambling about it means I’ve missed the point. Or maybe… it’s the fact that I’m questioning it at all that makes me lovable. I don’t know. But here’s what I do know for sure: Love is about giving, reassuring, accommodating, meeting those small, unnoticed expectations day after day… and never really knowing if it’s enough. Because the moment you think it is, that’s when you should start to worry.
Thank you for such a thoughtful post, intlxpatr.
Yousef, you made my day. Are you the same Yousef who gave me his Mother’s recipe for Muhammara, which I still use? If so, I am even more delighted to know that you are happy, have a family you love, and are so self-aware. Thank you for this thoughtful response that has delighted my heart.