Loving is Incovenient
Texting them a good morning takes more time than not, yet you do it because you love them.
Not loving is convenient.
The other day, I sat in traffic for an hour and a half just to go on a short walk with my favorite man alive — my uncle, now that my dad has passed. I knew exactly how it would go. We would talk about the political state of the world, about some new developments in the southern part of Vietnam. I would nod as if I understood everything he was saying, even when I didn’t. He would walk too fast for me to keep up, and I would half-jog beside him. We would laugh about people taking pictures near the spot where he always throws his trash. Meaningless conversations.
And yet, I would sit in traffic for hours just to feel the comfort of being near him. To walk beside him. To exist in the same physical space without needing anything extraordinary to happen. To have meaningless conversations to fill in the physical space of the most meaningful, invaluable moments with him.
That’s love.
It reminds me of a relationship I once thought was my endgame. We lived 8000 miles apart, and I flew to see him every other weekend. I took days off work just to stretch our time together by a few more hours. I accepted smaller paychecks and worried about rent at the end of the month just to hold his hand a little longer. I picked up extra shifts at my library job to cover flight tickets, convincing myself that exhaustion was a small price to pay.
And every time, it felt worth it. Even when the struggle was huge. Even when we ended in an ugly breakup that still burns in the back of my throat like cheap Tequila. Even when sweetness turned bitter and sour.
I never once regretted the inconvenience.
Because I had experienced love.
As I grow older, though, I find myself more resistant to the pains of loving. Not just romantic love — though that, too — but the quieter, steadier forms. The love for family. For friends. For the communities that will still be there long after the person I once called “the one” has faded into memory. The kind of love that does not announce itself loudly, but hums in the background of your life.
I am not talking about grand heartbreak or dramatic vulnerability. Not the cinematic version of love that requires sacrifice on a heroic scale. I am talking about the small inconveniences that feel optional. Waking up at 5 AM to drive a friend to the airport. Taking a morning off to sit with your mother at the eye doctor. Buying extra guacamole because your brother would love some in his Chipotle. Blasting Sabrina Carpenter in the car just to make your friend laugh on the way to departures.
Low-grade inconveniences. The kind that are easy to dismiss. The kind that do not look significant enough to matter.
And yet, they do.
Convenience is persuasive, sexy, and believable. It tells you that you are tired. That tomorrow will work just as well. That your absence will not be noticed. It reassures you that love does not require this much effort — that a text message is enough, that a “next time” will come around again.
Convenience is efficient. It protects your time, your energy, your pride. It trims away the extra steps, the unnecessary detours, the moments that do not seem productive. It makes your life smoother. Less messy, or touchy-feely.
But love does not live in smoothness.
Love lives in the waiting. In the slight delay. In the awkward pause while someone gathers their strength. In the extra ten minutes you did not plan for. It lives in the friction — the part of life that refuses to be optimized.
When I think about what has lasted in my memory, it is never the efficient moments. It is never the days when everything ran on schedule. It is the interruptions. Like when my dad was late picking me up from school because he was stuck in a meeting, and how happy I was when I finally saw his car. The way he and his driver would ask me too many questions about school that I didn’t feel like answering. The morning he taught me how to drive, and we held up traffic for so long that I started sweating from places I didn’t know I could sweat.
But most of all, the airport.
In the last few years before he passed, dad could not walk well on his own. Standing up from his chair was a challenge, not to mention getting out of the back seat of the car. He would shift his weight carefully, brace his hands, and rise slowly, as if he were negotiating with his own body. The airport was not built for a body like his — not for someone who needed extra seconds to steady himself, not for someone who moved at half the pace of the sliding doors and rushing crowds.
And yet, he showed up.
He drove me to the airport my freshman year of college, when leaving still felt like an adventure instead of a distance. He stood there while I checked in, pretending he wasn’t tired at 11:30 PM when he knew he’d have a meeting at 6 AM the next day. He waved as if it were the easiest thing in the world.
The last year I flew back to the U.S. for work, showing up at the airport was no longer easy. He needed help to stand. Help to sit. Help to walk short distances. Every step required intention. Every movement asked something from him.
And still, he came.
It took everything from him to get out of the car during those days. To straighten his back. To walk a few steps. To allow himself to be seen, just so he could wave goodbye to his little girl as she boarded a plane to another country. He knew I was leaving to earn a paycheck that would mostly be spent on rent and on flight tickets home, just to see his smile again. He understood the math of it. He understood that I was chasing something uncertain. He knew that it wouldn’t change anything logistically whether he showed up or not—it would probably have been easier for him if he didn’t.
And yet he showed up anyway.
That was love.
Not dramatic. Not loud. Just inconvenient.
Now, he will not be at the airport anymore when I leave. The sliding doors will open, and there will be no familiar figure gathering his strength to stand a little longer. That is the inconvenience of growing up — realizing that some gestures were never small, only disguised as such.
It is easier now not to show up. My friends no longer expect me to wake up at dawn to drive them anywhere. My mother tells me not to rearrange my schedule. Everyone is trying to be “low maintenance,” trying not to burden anyone else. Low-grade pain makes us cautious. It makes us efficient. It makes us protective of our time.
And that efficiency can quietly turn into laziness when it comes to love.
My understanding of love has changed. It is no longer only depth — the vertical plunge into intensity and passion. It is also horizontal. Scattered across ordinary days. Distributed in unremarkable gestures that, when accumulated, build a life. Love is not only in sacrifice; it is in presence. It is in showing up without being asked twice.
It is also in allowing others to show up for you.
We do not give people enough opportunities to love us. We refuse help. We downplay needs. We insist we are fine. But part of loving is letting someone wake up early for you, letting someone bring you hot chocolate on a cold day, letting someone drive you to the airport. Love requires participation on both ends — giving and receiving, inconvenience and gratitude.
Part of the art of loving is willingly placing yourself in small inconvenient situations, trading comfort for connection. Choosing traffic over solitude. Choosing early mornings over sleep. Choosing a few extra dollars spent on guacamole because someone you love will smile.
To me, love is oxygen. Breathing itself is an inconvenience — air moving through the nose, lungs expanding, oxygen traveling invisibly to every cell in the body. It takes effort. It is constant. It is not glamorous.
But it is life.
Not loving is convenient. It saves time. It protects pride. It avoids disappointment. But it also avoids the very thing that makes the inconvenience worthwhile.
To love is to accept inconvenience.
And to live is to be beautifully, endlessly, unequivocally, and happily inconvenienced.