Eighteen years ago, our weekends looked very different.

Back then, we were always flying somewhere. Because my husband worked for an airline, we spent many years in a long-distance relationship, constantly traveling between countries. We explored cities, searched for beautiful restaurants, and chased the excitement of seeing more of the world. New York, Greece, Japan — our memories were once filled with airports, hotel rooms, and dinner reservations.

These days, our weekends are much quieter.

Most Saturdays now look something like this: walking through a market together, choosing vegetables and fresh mussels for dinner, stopping for a coffee or orange juice halfway through shopping, and slowly carrying bags home. My husband always looks for fennel, which is surprisingly difficult to find in ordinary supermarkets. I usually choose the tomatoes because I know which ones are better for salad, soup, or pasta sauce.

When we get home, we often cook something simple. One of our favorite weekend meals is a plate of fresh mussels with a glass of prosecco. Mussels only take a few minutes to prepare after a long day out, but somehow that small meal already feels like enough happiness for us. Over the years, we stopped depending on restaurants to create happiness for us. Instead, we learned how to create it ourselves — quietly, at home.

Life, of course, was not always easy. During my chemotherapy, there was one Christmas we will never forget. My mother-in-law flew from Italy to take our child there for the holiday because I was too weak to travel. My husband stayed with me in London. That Christmas, we only cooked one simple dish: a bowl of Italian seafood pasta. I had little appetite, and he was never really the cook in the family, but somehow that meal stayed in my memory more than many expensive dinners we had years before.

Love did not disappear over the years. It simply changed shape.

Now it looks more like shared groceries, slow walks, quiet cooking, and someone waiting beside you through every season of life.

‍

‍