Really, Really Inside.

It’s February, and love is something you stick in the dirt. (That’s not it.) Love is like a stupid houseplant. (Closer, not quite.)  We tend to think of love as a feeling—sudden, overwhelming, cinematic—when in reality it behaves more like a houseplant. (Was that really so hard? Now wrap it up.) It needs regular attention, the right conditions, and the humility to notice when something’s off. February would have us believe that love arrives in a rush of roses and declarations, but most real devotion shows up in more discreet ways: re-watching a so-so series, remembering to buy double ply toilet paper, and asking the follow-up question even though you don’t, and never will, care about the answer.  Love is less about grand gestures and more about maintenance—and there is something deeply romantic, and a little disturbing, about that.

(Before we sort through that, let me introduce myself. I am Laura’s brain, on temporary assignment as newsletter author since she has lost her mind. Bet365 set the odds at 60-40, so it shouldn’t be a big surprise, cabin fever is a real thing. Unfortunately she lives on one of those steep, windy streets that the City is ignoring even though it’s covered in ice, so here we are. She’s out in the front yard hacking away at the ice and shouting “the squirrels need their nuts!,” while I’m making an argument that love is maintenance. Perhaps we’ve both lost it, but here we are. Let’s start with the myth of the grand gesture, shall we?)

February insists that love should be obvious. Preferably expensive, and ideally documented online. We’ve been taught to equate romance with spectacle—to believe that if love is real, it should announce itself with flowers, reservations made months in advance, and a passable outpouring of affection. 

This fantasy is well-supported by our cultural narratives. Love stories rarely survive past the confession or the kiss; they end before the real work begins. No one makes a movie called It’s Your Turn to Cook, and Casablanca didn’t start with Rick and Ilsa balancing their checkbook. Maintenance does not test well with focus groups.

The problem with grand gestures isn’t that they’re empty—it’s that they’re episodic. They create spikes of intensity that can’t sustain anything on their own. Dinners finish. Flowers wilt. Trips end. 

The spectacle also lets us confuse effort with care. A dramatic gesture asks little of us once it’s over. Maintenance asks everything, all the time: attention, memory, the willingness to notice what’s starting to fray. There’s no applause for consistency, but it’s the thing that lasts.

Maintenance is devotion. Maintenance is not romantic in the way we’ve been taught to recognize romance. It doesn’t sparkle. It doesn’t surprise. It doesn’t photograph well. And yet, it is the most reliable evidence of care we have.

Maintenance shows up as follow-through. It’s remembering what matters to someone when there’s no audience. It’s doing the small, necessary things not because they’re charming, but because neglect would cost more in the long run. In relationships, as in life, very little falls apart all at once. Most things fail slowly, through inattention.

This is what makes maintenance a form of devotion rather than obligation. Devotion is sustained interest-it’s the decision to keep tending something even after the novelty wears off. Anyone can love at the peak of feeling; maintenance asks whether you’re willing to show up during the plateau.

The acts themselves are modest—making a favorite meal again, refilling what’s empty, checking in without prompting—but their accumulation is lavish. Over time, these gestures create safety, familiarity, and trust. They say I’m here, I see you, and I’ll be here again tomorrow. 

If grand gestures are about intensity, maintenance is about endurance. And endurance is what most of us are actually hoping for. The point isn’t perfection, it’s responsiveness. Maintenance doesn’t ask for constant intensity; it creates a regular presence. Love, then, is less about how you feel in a given moment and more about how reliably you show up across many of them.