The Moment You Know

“When you know, you know.” Ah, that age-old piece of advice, passed from mother to daughter, friend to friend, colleague to colleague, referencing that gut feeling of just *knowing* that you’re in love. Whether it’s one moment, a series of moments or a slow-burning, secret flame that takes you by surprise after years of not realising, there often comes that switch of “crap, this is the real deal”. Love, to me, is an elusive, fantastical, unknowable thing. I’m a romantic through and through (I was an English Literature student and I was born on Valentine’s Day, for Christ’s sake), and the innumerable human interactions that go into creating ‘love’ fascinate me; how many small glances are exchanged, how many unexpected confessions, how many moments of quiet adoration go into creating, surely, our greatest bonds. I unashamedly love love, as I think we all should do.

Jewellery for Valentine’s Day is hardly ground-breaking, but I’m all for the exchange of sentimental items on special occasions. On my 21st birthday my grandparents gave me a ‘granddaughter’ necklace, and on Christmas Day my brother and boyfriend Keiran clubbed together to get me a special ring; no matter their monetary worth, these will always be my most precious possessions. When Links of London posed this campaign to me, I knew I wanted to choose a piece that represented not only the that light-bulb, love moment, but how special jewellery can be.

Links of London Treasured Ring*

For me, there’s more than one moment. In fact, there are lots of little moments that have filled my heart. If you’ve fallen in love, been in love or just come close, you’ll know what I mean when I say my heart was full. The only thing I can equate it to is “cute rage”, which, defined by the ever-reliable Urban Dictionary, is “the insuppressible emotion experienced upon sight of an unbelievably cute animal that causes the brain to overload and create a sensation of rage”. Your significant other is that unbelievably cute animal (technically true), and the small but profound acts of love that they perform flood you with an emotion so strong that you feel you either have to suffocate them to death or burst from the inside. Keiran is always one to surprise me in this department. When I want him to buy me flowers and whisk me off to Paris, he doesn’t, but when I think we’re just relaxing in his bedroom on a Wednesday evening, he’ll do something small and unexpected that nudges me off the edge all over again.

Just like the three dainty rings that sit at the centre of this Links of London gold band,
there are three moments that stand out to me when I think of falling in
love with Keiran. One evening last year when I was finishing off my
English degree in Norwich, he jumped on a late train after work to stay
with me, knowing he’d have to be on the 7.a.m. return the next morning
to be ready for work again. He got in late, I was in bed, and I was
stressing over a book I hadn’t read for my seminar the next day. Instead
of telling me to forget about it and taking the time to relax himself,
he propped some pillows up for me, handed me the book, and gave me a
foot massage for three hours to encourage me to finish the book. And I
did (annoyingly enough it was barely discussed the next day, but you
know, Sod’s Law). Another evening he was gearing up for a big match that
could potentially change his career when my old familiar friend,
cystitis struck again. “Go to bed,” I said, grabbing a pint glass of
water and a God-awful cranberry sachet, “you need your sleep for
tomorrow.” That, he did not do. Not wanting me to be alone whilst I was
unwell, he dragged his pillow and duvet into the bathroom and slept on
the floor, in what I can only imagine was the most uncomfortable
sleeping situation of his life. The final moment was when he went away
with his friends to a festival, and I was being my typical mopey self
because I was going to miss him. The day he left he secretly organised
for a big bunch of red roses to be delivered to my house, with a note
that I still have pinned to my bedroom mirror.

All of these moments were small, and to a lot of people, insignificant. But to me they were signs of self-sacrifice, of thoughtfulness – of caring more for me than he did himself. Whilst I was thinking about writing this post, I reflected on the idea that the best thing about being in love is being somebody’s first thought, and they being yours in return. Maybe, just maybe, that’s the moment that you know.

This post was sponsored by Links of London, but all thoughts, content and imagery are my own.

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