The Push

My husband came home and I was upset. Not dramatically. Nothing had happened, exactly — it had just been building.

I didn't feel like I was getting enough attention. I'm needy anyway. I know this about myself. But that day I was particularly despondent.

I knew I was loved. That wasn't the problem. I just didn't feel loved enough. Not to the level I wanted to feel it.

There's something slightly ridiculous about admitting that. To know, rationally and completely, that somebody loves you, and still find yourself thinking:

Yes, but could you love me a little louder, please?

I was lying in the hammock, consumed by it all, when he came over, without knowing what I was thinking, he kissed me on the head and gave the hammock a gentle push.

And I started to swing. Backwards. Forwards. Backwards. Forwards.

Somewhere in those first few swings, something in me changed. My body filled with love, kindness, care — all the things I'd been sitting there believing I wasn't getting enough of, suddenly contained in this tiny act. A hand on a hammock. A kiss on the head. A push.

Maybe that's one of the strange things about love. We spend hours measuring it by what hasn't happened — the attention we haven't received, the words that haven't been said. And then someone does something almost impossibly small. Makes you a cup of tea. Pulls the blanket over your feet. Puts a hand on your back as they pass. Pushes the hammock you're lying in.

And somehow the body understands what the mind had been arguing with all afternoon: there you are. I see you. I care for you.

Nothing had actually been resolved. But swinging there, I felt much better. I felt loved.

Sometimes, apparently, love doesn't need to arrive loudly. Sometimes it just needs to give you a little push.