Hey rockstars, 

Like so many posts before, this was inspired by an Instagram reflection (shocking, I know. But isn’t it nice that I’m so predictable?). A guy named Preston Rakovsky, who shares incredibly vulnerable and real posts about what love means, recently showed up on my “For You” page, and I’m so glad he did.

In a post from December 9, 2025, he shared the perspective of a young woman who declared, “I remember” is more romantic than “I love you.” As I read her words, I found myself nodding and emphatically saying, “Yes!!!” throughout the entire piece.

The woman explained that her ex loved her the way she wanted, but he consistently failed to recall the small details about her. Later, after a year of silence following their breakup, she reconnected with someone from her past. He not only remembered her, but he remembered her allergies and her favorite pasta.

It was after a year of silence, there were still details about me that felt worth holding onto and that felt more intimate than any partner saying “i love you” to me because declarations of love are just words, but remembering is the action of it. Because you can fake loving someone but you cannot fake remembering. 

Most importantly, remembering implies that “I think of you in your absence, whether it’s convenient or not.”

The Unexpected Gift of Being Seen

I had a moment (or a few) that illustrated this recently. So on Friday night, I popped into my apartment building’s holiday party for the last 30 minutes to get some dinner and some free drinks because, why not? Of course, the woman running the bar looked at me and handed me one of each of the three drink options (a winter sangria, a pomegranate margarita, and a spiked eggnog). I’m not really sure what she was thinking when she saw me… or what it says about me because I took all three of those drinks like I was a girl drinking water for the first time after a month in the desert. 

Regardless, I then got a message from my sweet friend and coworker, Marie, asking if I could hop on a call. We chatted about work, but in the last 10 minutes, she paused and asked, “But tell me about your trip!” referring to my recent trip to India. I excitedly launched into my travel stories, and she followed up with, “I read your blog post.”

“Oh my god, which one?!” I asked, thrilled. She told me she read the one about my favorite love quotes.

In reality, it didn’t even matter which post she read. I was just so thrilled that she read it at all. I probably sent Marie a link to my blog months ago, but the fact that she reads it on her own volition (and that I don’t need to send her personalized links the way I do with some other people) made me feel incredibly seen.

Then on Saturday, I asked my friends Justin and Nimra that there was a set of earrings I saw at the holiday market that I adored and regret not getting. Of course, the sweet people they are, went to the market, to the exact booth, and got me the exact ones I mentioned. 

Or other times, I’ll be talking to someone and they’ll recall some obscure thing I told them months ago that I had forgotten I even mentioned. “Wait, how do you know that?” I ask. “You told me a few months ago, Sandhya!” they reply.

It always catches me off guard (in the best way) when someone remembers a specific preference, a like, or a dislike I’ve shared. The ones who truly care are the ones you only have to say something to once, and then they hold onto it.

The ones who care are the ones you only have to say something to once, and then they remember. 

The Two-Year Memory

This past weekend, I went home to my parents’ house, and my mom told me another sweet story about this very idea. Two years ago, my mom went to a family friend’s house and absolutely adored a painting she had hanging up. Our family friend explained she got it from India. My mom offhandedly told her, “Oh, next time you go, let me know!” and then never mentioned it again.

Lo and behold, two years later, that friend gifted a painting to my mom. My mom specifically told me: “We talked about it two years ago, and we have not brought it up since, and still, she remembered.”

That’s love. That’s caring about someone else, considering someone else, and that is exactly what the young woman was saying in the Instagram post.

Remembering someone is like saying: 

“I find you in the thousand small choices I make without thinking”

May we all be surrounded with people who remember our favorite foods, our favorite places, our favorite colors, our preferences, our pet peeves, our comfort movies when we need a distraction, our go-to coffee/tea order, our childhood dreams, the name of our first car, our hobbies or projects we’ve currently set aside, and our little superstitions.

This kind of recognition is the currency of true connection. It’s the difference between hearing a person and truly listening to them. It moves us beyond surface-level relationships and into the sacred space of intimacy, where our smallest details are cherished, not dismissed.

We don’t need grand gestures or constant declarations; we need people who pay attention. We need the people who see the quiet footnotes of our lives as the essential text.

My challenge for you this week is simple: Don’t just tell someone you love them. Show them you remember them. Pick one small detail someone shared with you (a preference, a fear, a favorite) and act on it. Because while “I love you” is a wonderful sentiment, there is nothing in the world more loving, more intimate, or more powerful than saying, “I remember.”

Until next time!

xo

Sandhya

If you would like to celebrate my 30th year around the sun with me, then please click the follow or subscribe button! Feel free to connect with me through this platform, twitter, my coffee and checkins Instagram, my podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or Amazon Music, or email me at coffeeandcheckins@gmail.com! If you have any suggestions for topics or anything you’d like me to write/speak about, please let me know🙂❤