The Art of Witnessing Love
a meditation on documenting and noticing love
In between the nerves and the surreal moment of elopements, I feel completely full. The nerves to follow the clerk’s rules, to not mess up, to stay vulnerable in the midst of it all. Perhaps, the most.
I grow bigger. I am filled with joy and hope—for them, for me, for the world we live in.
Affection appears differently for everyone. For some, it’s holding hands. For others, it’s laughing at the bureaucracy of city hall as they’re ushered into the next section of the process. It’s the soft shoulder grab. The turning around to see your person right as your number is called. It’s intimacy, hidden within the most mundane process.
I witness people ride the rollercoaster of their emotions. I try to grab hold of the genuine motions. The silly faces… the laughter… the tears… the chaos. The way they exist in the middle of a crowd but stay inside their small bubble of love.
In these moments, I become both witness and student. Curious. Patient. I aim to capture memory, not perfection. To understand who they are today. What their love feels like on this day.
Is their love shy? Vulnerable? Loud? Funny? Who are they when they meet the spotlight? Do they shine brighter? Do they giggle? Do they transform before my eyes?
I leave these days with high energy that spills into the rest of my day.
My cheeks flushed.
My body warm.
My heart tender, soft, open.
I leave inspired. To write. To heal. My heart heals a little more each time, not by closing, but by opening wider.
The hope returns. The dream to one day choose someone, fully and openly. To imagine not just the wedding day, but the person I’ll be on that day. The type of person I’ll choose to experience it with.
The most intimate parts of the relationship often happen when stress and confusion take over. When bureaucracy gets heavier. When the clerk at the desk reminds you to get your documents together neatly. When the system reminds you that you’re part of its process, not the center of its day.
I witness more than most. The smaller gestures. The in-between movement. The energy exchange. I learn about the kind of love that exists between two people. How singular it is. How perfectly they fit together. No two are the same. My days become lighter because I witness love that fuels hope. Hope in a world that often feels heavy.
And as I witness others become love, I also remember me.
The way I love deeply. The way I love unconditionally. How my love is soft and gentle and patient. I may not be the type to scream my love to a crowd, but I am the one who stays through the unimaginable and mundane.
I crave a love that is ordinary. In the grandness of simplicity. Love that holds a safe space to be seen and admired while becoming. Love that builds. That carries respect, agency, accountability, and choice.
The choice to become a version of yourself that didn’t exist before. The choice that expands you in incredible ways.
I’ve seen many couples whose paths to each other don’t make perfect sense. But that’s where the beauty lives, no? In the choice. In the freedom to say, this is my person, they are it. The reclamation of your own future.
They remind me to forgive myself. To recognize that I, too, can expand, change, and choose. I am changed with every couple. I crave more. I dream more. Not in desperation, but in grounding. I am changing between seasons. One day, I will bloom into love again.
The imperfections of the day are ordinary and true. Life always has its own plans… but we can open our hearts to love. We can learn through our seasons. We can be diligent in our choices. We can honor the responsibility we carry as lovers.
If love were a color, i think it’s yellow.
Full of hope.
Full of life.
Full of the invisible.
Full.
Thank you for reading and sitting with these words. If you’d like to help fuel more writing about the quiet spaces between becoming and belonging, you can buy me a coffee.
Always rooting for you,
inafetse