Skip to main content

Small Acts of Love


A game of hockey going on on the river
My boyfriend plays on a hockey team from September to May. It isn’t an official team—they don’t play games throughout the season and aren’t in any leagues—but they meet diligently every week for practice (he actually plays with two teams but it still isn’t clear to me what the difference is between them except that one team is better than the other). This requires some dedication because practices for both teams are either very late in the evening or very early in the morning.

At the end of their season, before they take a break for the summer, the players come together and have a full-length game. I wanted to go last year and this year but wasn’t able to make it either time. Instead I asked him to send me a picture of himself in all of his gear. Last year he sent me a selfie of himself before the game, but without his gear on so I hoped this year he would manage to get a picture with both. He did not.

I was willing to drop it, figuring eventually I will see him outfitted as a tough hockey player. The gear all came home, was washed and put in his very large hockey bag. And then it sat in the hallway for two weeks. I wasn’t sure why he hadn’t put it away since usually he’s very good about putting things where they need to go.
It turned out he was waiting to put on all of the gear for me before putting it away. And so one evening, after he had come home from work, made food for both of us and packed for a trip he was about to take, he asked me if I wanted to see him with his gear on.

The process was intensive. I counted over ten articles of clothing or equipment. As I watched him put all of this stuff on, I thought about how much I would hate having to do this when I wasn’t about to go play some real hockey and how I would likely try talking my way out of doing this or forget about it entirely. But he did it. For me.

It’s these small things that people do for us (like putting on all of their hockey gear) that bring the most joy. I always thought that most elaborate, sweet gestures were the most romantic, but the reality is that it’s the small ones that count most. I like to think of them as small acts of love.

And this is true of all relationships and in can be in even smaller ways. For me, my small gestures towards friends have been to show gratitude more for the small things instead of apologizing. So instead of telling someone sorry for being late, I try thanking them for waiting (I started this after reading this article from The Atlantic). I’m reaching out to people to acknowledge the effort they have put, no matter how big or small the effort is.

I also am trying to ask them about little things that I remember about their lives. If someone has an event coming up, I try asking them about it when it happens, or if a friend tells me about plans to bake a cake, I will try asking how it came out.

So far, showing gratitude and interest have been the only way I have consciously tried to do more small acts of love, but I plan on finding more and doing them with greater intention. This introspection is important, I think, in making them more of a habit. So here's to spreading more joy and love around as the school year ends and summer rolls in.

Comments

  1. Oh I love the last part of the Atlantic article! (Really the whole thing) but suggesting that humans have an inmate wish to be of service to each other is beautiful. I love this post!!! Thank you.💕

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ahhhh, I have noticed this intentional gesture for love and now I know the inspiration! You have a "Warrior" in hockey gear! - Jac

    ReplyDelete
  3. <3 You have such role models at home on this front. So happy to see you found that in Samy too..

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Love Letter

One of my friends requested that I write a post about love. Now felt like a good a time as any for such a post. Admittedly, this post is extremely personal and I have more than a few misgivings about putting this out for the world to see. I wish that I could write about how I was in a wonderful relationship. My first somewhat real relationship was a whirlwind of emotions but it ended soon after it began. It’s end though allowed me to appreciate the other kinds of love that I am blessed to be surrounded by. These are the wonderful people around me who have come, in all forms and at all times, to lift me up during times of doubt, worry, pain or loneliness.   My class loves potlucks and recently we had another one. Since my kitchen has proved to be a good location for such gatherings in the past, I volunteered to host it again. The day of the potluck turned out to be a very emotionally low day for me. I spent much of it crying and then trying in vain ...

Holding Sand

 My mother once gave me the sound advice to avoid holding tightly onto things (she was specifically talking about people at the time) because if you do, they have a habit of slipping away. She did this through a marvelous metaphor that went like this: If you have sand in your hand and make a fist, the sand begins to fall out and you are left with less sand than you started with. If you gently cup you hand and let the sand come in however, it remains in your hand, and you can perhaps even add more. This metaphor has stuck with me because it helped me with the problem that I was having back then. But I’ve come back to it again and again and slowly been realizing the smaller and more subtle ways that I grab onto things. These things are now always visible or tangible, but they still have important implications. Take meditation. I meditate every day. It’s like brushing my teeth, I simply can’t skip this part of my day. But unlike brushing my teeth, which is a methodical and easy ...

Change of Pace

A view of the Turku archipelago in the frigid weather. PC: Sami All of my time in the past month has been spent with doing one of two things: preparing for next year and making sure I get done with this year. The flurry of activity has been a welcome change to the rather luxuriously slow pace that had been defining my days up until now but in the process, this blog has fallen by the wayside. So what are these many things that have been taking up my time?   1.      Ice skating This is by far not what has occupied most of my time, but I think it has been the most refreshing. Last year I went ice skating only once and, as thrilling as it was, never got around to going again. Plus, the weather last year was so mild that you had to take advantage of cold days when they came to get much time on the ice. This year has been much better and ice skating has been a great excuse to bring people together. It’s this year’s version of chai. Thanks to my mo...