i’ve always found it fascinating — how love doesn’t just happen in moments, but in shifts. quiet, ordinary shifts. like the way my vocabulary subtly changes when i grow close to someone. how suddenly a word i never used before becomes part of my everyday speech, just because she said it once, and it felt right. felt like her. like something i wanted to keep close.

it’s not something i do consciously. i don’t sit there with a notebook tracking how i’ve started typing in “caps” the way she does when she is hyped, or how i’ve stopped using exclamation marks because she never did. but it happens. slowly. naturally. as if love seeps into the syntax of your life and rewrites the sentences for you.

and it’s not just words. it’s tone, pacing, punctuation. even music. especially music.

i used to be fiercely independent about my playlists. the kind of person who curated everything down to the mood of a tuesday morning. but now i find myself checking our spotify blend like it’s some kind of love letter. every time it tells me we’re 94% similar, something in me exhales. the kind of soft exhale you don’t notice until it leaves your body, the quiet kind that says, okay, we’re still here.

and maybe it’s stupid, how much comfort i draw from that percentage. but i don’t think it is. because it’s not just about taste. it’s about proof — proof that we’re syncing without even trying. that something as random as a shared love for acoustic sad songs or chaotic pop remixes becomes the metric of closeness. that the algorithm noticed what my heart already knew: we’re orbiting the same emotional weather.

sometimes a song comes on shuffle, one i know she added to the blend, and it stops me in my tracks. not because it’s inherently special, but because it’s hers. and by extension, now it’s mine. there’s something deeply romantic about that kind of accidental adoption. about letting her mood bleed into mine, letting her preferences build new corners inside my own taste. the borders between us blur a little more every time i find myself loving something because she loved it first.

and then there are the texts. the way i type differently now. a space before the period. the lack of capital letters. the “hahaha”s that used to be “lol”s. little digital fingerprints that don’t feel like imitation, just closeness. echoes. i think that’s what intimacy often is — the slow, invisible way two people begin to rhyme.

i’ve always thought language is one of the most sacred things we have. the way we say things — the rhythm, the weight, the silence between words, that’s how we’re known. and when someone begins to shift that in you, when their presence shows up in your sentences, your tone, your silence… that’s not small. that’s love, in one of its purest forms.

the thing is, i’ve changed for people before. and not always in ways that felt like love. sometimes i bent so much i couldn’t remember what i sounded like without them. but this is different. this is not erasure. this is expansion. she doesn’t ask me to shift. i just do. because loving her feels less like folding myself down, and more like unfolding. like i’ve discovered new ways to be myself, because of the space she holds.

and maybe that’s why it lingers, even in the quiet moments. even when we’re not talking. i still catch myself using her words. still find her phrases slipping into my conversations with others. and there’s a comfort in that, in knowing that some part of her is stitched into the fabric of how i exist now. not in a way that hurts. just in a way that is.

i won’t lie, i think about the flip side sometimes, too. about the people who left, and how their words stayed — how i still say things a certain way because someone, years ago, said it first. and then disappeared. that kind of intimacy doesn’t dissolve. it settles. i think it’s a uniquely human thing, this desire to preserve connection through language. to keep saying a word because it reminds you of a person you no longer speak to. like keeping a souvenir from a place you’ll never return to, not because you want to go back, but because you were changed there.

maybe that’s the grief of it. or maybe it’s the grace. that even when people leave, they don’t take everything. sometimes, they leave behind their voice in yours. a phrase. a song. a silence.

sometimes i wonder, will she ever notice it too? the changes in her voice, her playlists, her messages? will she ever look at a song on her repeat list and think, this reminds me of him? will she text someone else using a phrase that began with me? i don’t know. and maybe i don’t need to.

because maybe love isn’t always about mutuality. maybe it’s about the imprint. the part of someone that lives on quietly, without them even realising it. and i think that’s beautiful. painful, sometimes. but beautiful.

i don’t want the version of love that shouts. i want the kind that sneaks into my vocabulary. that alters my music taste. that changes the way i say “goodnight.” the kind that lives in spotify blends and slightly altered typing habits. the kind that makes me pause, halfway through a sentence, because i hear someone else’s voice in mine, and i don’t want it to go away.

i don’t know if there’s a word for that. for this soft, quiet, unspoken echoing. but if there is, i think it might be the truest name for love i’ve ever known.

and sometimes, i see it in places i didn’t expect. in my parents, for instance, the way they move around the kitchen together. how one slices while the other stirs. no dramatic declarations. just a rhythm built from years of choosing each other in small, ordinary ways. there is an intimacy in getting tired together, existing in the same silence and staying, even when there’s nothing new to say.

that’s the kind of love i want to believe in — the kind that lingers in the everyday. in borrowed words, shared songs, a well-timed look. a kind of quiet that feels like home.

a small note:

i don’t even know why i wrote this. maybe it’s just one of those days when my mind feels too full, and i’m not great at putting things into words. i don’t even know if the person it’s about will ever read it, or know it’s for her.

but like always, i care. probably too much. i find meaning in small things, and maybe that’s not for everyone. maybe it scares people off. but that doesn’t change the fact that this is how i am. my person will have to hold space for that — the same way i’ll hold space for her.

still, i’m hopeful. i believe there’s someone out there who won’t just accept this part of me, but see it, stay, and maybe even love it. and i’ll do the same for them. we just have to keep moving. keep softening. keep looking.