Lovers talking Love
Valentines Day may be a manufactured, highly commercialized capitalistic sales day, but do we really need this "Hallmark Holiday" to recognize or celebrate how lucky we are to love and be loved?
This Valentines, we chatted with five individuals who we know are true lovers. Although this holiday was not everyone's cup of tea, there was a shared relatability of working hard for loving others and yourself, efforts they all believe in, at the heart level.
Whether married, dating, or thriving solo, their stories bring on that gushy feeling inside. Cheers to love at its highest, and lowest, and everything it teaches along the way.
Jake + Noelle
Hive: What is the first thing that you do to start your day together?
Jake: Usually we wake up and say “we get another day”, we kiss each other, then we see which one is more perked up to go make coffee.
Noelle: Jake usually wakes up a little before me, and I wake up and he's next to me. We often start our days with the term “we get another day” because it's an expression of gratitude. He's a morning person and I'm not and that's just who we are and there's no shame in it, we actually love it about each other. He makes me my coffee, we hand grind our beans for a french press because those kinds of things connect us to those things because a hot cup of Guatemala coffee is a privilege and a gift that I don't ever want to take for granted. He never wakes me up before my body wakes me up. This has been a year of getting my health back and it's been so great. We don't have to rush anything, we take our time and I'm so grateful. It sets the tone for the whole day.
H: Did you guys quarantine together? How has the pandemic affected your relationship?
J: Yeah we quarantined. But, yeah, we have such a good relationship that if anything it deepened it. We would want to do things together. That's our life anyways, we just really like being together.
N: We did. I would say that we've only had a positive impact from the pandemic. In the beginning there was a lot of information up in the air and we were all being as cautious as we could. I did a lot of baking, pretzels, cinnamon rolls, food was important! It was this little celebration like we were here, we were together, so let's make it special. We watched a ton of shows, listened to music. It probably affected Jake socially more than me. We're both probably considered introverts but Jake needs more social interaction than I do but we've worked through it.
How did you meet?
J: We met in 2009, at Pacsun in the Silver Lake Mall. She was working, I was 21, You know when you see that person and you're just like damn, that's it for me. I went to a house party and met this girl who worked at pacsun and I asked her if she knew Noelle and she was like “That's my boss, she's married, that's weird” and I was like “I know, i'm just so in love with her”. 2015 is when we got together after I moved back home from philadelphia, she just went through a divorce and I had to strike while the iron was hot, like you're not gonna be with anyone else but me.
N: We met at Pacsun in the Silver Lake Mall. I was working there, I managed that store with my friend, and we met in 2010. I'm really cautious in relationships. I know all the rules and I go slow in relationships but to me all relationships are just chemistry, it doesn't matter if it's romantic or platonic or whatever it's just love that I share in this existence of my life. There was just something about him that I thought “this guy has to be happy, he has to be successful, he