Allherluv

I think of my grandmother, who never said "I love you" with grand gestures. She said it by remembering how I took my tea (two sugars, a splash of milk, stirred seven times). She said it by keeping a spare key under the same ceramic frog for thirty years, just in case I ever forgot mine. Her love was not a lightning bolt. It was a lighthouse. Consistent. Unwavering. All of it.

What does it mean to give someone all of your love? And more importantly, what does it mean to receive it? We live in an age of distraction. Our attention is fractured into a thousand tiny pieces, scattered across notifications, to-do lists, and the endless scroll. In this chaos, allherluv feels almost radical. allherluv

For a long time, I thought self-love was bubble baths and face masks. And those are lovely. But real self-love is harder. Real self-love is setting the boundary. It is walking away from the table when respect is no longer being served. It is forgiving yourself for the mistake you made three years ago that you still flinch at in the shower. I think of my grandmother, who never said

With all her love, and all of mine,

But allherluv lives in the mundane.