Love in a teapot

As the more emotive person in our relationship— the one who always says “I love you” first, who gives in when there’s a disagreement, who showers Biff with praise— I’ve always assumed that I loved him more than he loved me (if love is indeed a quantifiable thing, which I’m not sure it is).

I’ve always assumed that the depth of my love for Biff was simply more than his for me, and I’ve mostly been okay with that. After this many years... I’ve made peace with it.

But then yesterday happened. For Christmas, Biff gifted me with this teapot. Inside (scroll to see) was our first photo strip as a couple, the monthiversary card I gave him (on the same night I asked him to be my boyfriend), a train ticket he kept from one of the first times he came to visit my apartment (I lived in Hollywood and he’d take the subway from Koreatown to visit me). It had a sugar packet from when my parents took us to Hawaii before the kids came to live with us. It had the first ultrasound from when I was pregnant. He kept all of those things. . Time for me to let go of this story that love is something you can measure based on compliments and martyrdom. Time for me to embrace this new story that maybe, just maybe, I can stop trying to win Biff over because... I already did, a long time ago.