73. Love is...

Last week was Valentine's Day, here's a list of a few things that feel like love for me.

“Love” is something far too extensive for me to explain easily here, but here’s a list of some of the things that make me feel love.

• Letting your boyfriend make you breakfast without needing to intervene and allowing yourself to be taken care of.

• Saying “I feel differently” instead of “you’re wrong”.

• Meeting up with, speaking to or messaging friends. My friends make my heart burst.

• Feeling your chest inflate like a big balloon because your friend’s won a poetry prize.

• The first sip of a hot cup of tea.

• Wearing your favourite clothes and feeling like you take up more space in the world.

• Receiving a letter from your friend who lives far away.

• Saying “thank you, baby”.

• The first few seconds when you get in a really hot bath.

• When you wake up in the morning to find a WhatsApp voice message from your friend telling you about her weekend.

• Smiling at yourself in the mirror as you apply your face serum or cream before bed.

• Waking up in the morning and taking a few minutes to look out of the window.

• Learning how to say “no” with a polite smile knowing that you’re being kind to yourself by doing what you need to do.

• Getting into bed, snuggling with your favourite blanket and watching a film.

• Finishing a book having enjoyed it and soaked up some good feelings.

• Listening to a song that makes you want to dance and allowing yourself to do so.

• Singing an Adele song in the shower as if you were performing in a massive stadium or as if you’ve just gone through a breakup (she doesn’t usually sing about happy things but they feel good to sing).

• Looking back on photos that make you happy.

• Writing in your journal and making a list of the things you feel grateful for.

• Giving yourself 15 minutes to meditate and sit with yourself.

• A long, tight, warm hug with someone dear to you.

• Sending snail mail back to your friends.

• Buying yourself flowers and looking at them as much as you can in one day.

• Or buying someone else flowers.

• Giving yourself the time and space to do something that you enjoy just for the fun of it.

• Pasta. Any pasta dish will always make my stomach do a happy-dance.

• Speaking on the phone with people you love and catching up on each other’s lives.

• Freshly made popcorn.

• Big, fluffy, thick, warm socks.

• Putting on a hoodie that smells of your own perfume.

• The first pages of a new notebook or the first words written on a blank sheet of paper.

• A full notebook.

• The warm hug from the fire in the fireplace.

• The feel and smell of freshly washed bedsheets.

Everyone has their own things that make their heart warm up or their lips smile. These are some of the things that make life magical and warm for me. Not all of these things happen on Valentine’s Day but they’re still special, maybe even more so because they can happen any other day of the year ❤️

I hope you all feel love in some way this week.
See you next Monday at 7:34 a.m.