Commentary

As you can imagine, my life can feel chaotic. Four young children. Guests coming and going on the ranch. The Barn restaurant running full speed. Animals that don’t care what day it is. Tiny houses that always need more toilet paper and soap. There is always something.

If you know me, you know my car tells the story. Shoes kicked off in the back. Snacks crushed into the seats. Papers from the restaurant. Ranch receipts. A random roll of paper towels. Maybe a toy horse or two. It’s not filthy. It’s just ... full. Like my life.

One of the things that makes me feel the most loved has nothing to do with big gestures. My husband will take my car without saying much, have it detailed, and fill it with gas. I’ll come out and it’s clean. Full tank. Everything reset.

It feels like exhaling.

There’s something about someone stepping in and quietly lifting a small burden that you didn’t even realize was sitting on your chest. It says, I see how much you’re carrying.

Years ago I read “The 5 Love Languages.” The book talks about how people give and receive love differently—physical touch, acts of service, quality time, words of affirmation, gifts. I remember reading it and thinking how obvious it was once you saw it. How many arguments are just misfires in translation.

I am not big on gifts. Words are nice, but they don’t move me deeply. Acts of service? That’s it. That’s the one. If you take something off my plate, if you make my life run a little smoother, I feel loved in my bones.

My husband’s is physical touch. That book said something like most men rank that first, and from what I’ve observed in my life, that checks out. He also feels loved when I cook for him. A meal made intentionally. Coffee brought to him. It sounds simple, but to him it isn’t.

Here’s the tension.

After cooking for restaurant guests, feeding kids, making sure everyone else has eaten, it is very easy for me to think, “He can make his own coffee. He is a grown man. I have 10,000 things happening.”

And that’s not wrong. It’s just incomplete.

When my first marriage ended, I had to do some hard reflecting. If I wanted this marriage to work, I couldn’t just love the way that felt natural to me. I had to be willing to love him in the way he experiences love.

That requires attention. And humility.

This week he made an extra $200 helping a neighbor with a small job. He didn’t buy himself something. He didn’t stash it away. He detailed my car and filled it with gas.

No speech. No announcement. Just the keys.

That is love.

It’s not flashy. It won’t make a highlight reel. But it lightened my load. And I felt it.

Our marriage is not perfect. We disagree. We get tired. We both have strong personalities and full days. But we are committed. And commitment isn’t romance—it’s repetition. It’s choosing, over and over, not to drift into autopilot.

It’s easy to fall asleep in marriage. Easy to start keeping quiet score. Easy to interpret everything through your own lens and miss what the other person is actually offering.

Sometimes love is a clean car.

Sometimes it’s a hot meal.

Sometimes it’s sitting close at the end of a long day when you’d rather scroll your phone.

The gestures are small. The meaning isn’t.

And when someone sees you, really sees you, in the middle of the chaos, that matters more than anything grand you could stage.

Love in the Small Things

The Consolations of the Declaration

Mexico Got Tough on a Cartel. The US Should Get Tougher.

Communism’s Sinister Makeover