My boyfriend and I are in a long distance relationship, and during one of my visits to his place, we decided to make pancakes for breakfast. Since the day he tried the pancakes I made, he determined that every Sunday is pancake day. Now, as the term coined by my boyfriend, “Pancake Sundays” is a little cutesy tradition we do every Sunday when we are together.
It wasn’t a big decision or anything we planned out. Sometimes we make them together, sometimes for each other.
What began as something cutesy slowly turned into something we look forward to every single week. And when we’re apart, it’s something we miss more. On a rare Sunday apart, I still make pancakes on my own sometimes. It keeps me feeling connected to him in some small way, even though, if I’m honest, it also makes the missing him part a little louder.
But there was one Sunday that changed what Pancake Sundays actually means to me.
The night before, we had a fight. I genuinely don’t remember what it was about anymore, which is almost funny now, but back then it felt heavy. If I’m being honest with myself, it probably started from me (I have this tendency to overthink things into something bigger than they are okay? I’m just a girl).
We didn’t resolve it that night. We just went to bed still upset.
The next morning, he got up early. We still weren’t talking much.
But he made us pancakes anyway.
I know how small that sounds written out like this. But in that moment, it gave me a sense of reassurance that meant everything. We were both in our heads a lot and the air between us still felt nauseously heavy, but he just continued the thing we’d built together. And somehow that told me more than words could have.
That’s when I realized Pancake Sundays were never really about pancakes.
They become a love language of their own, one that can say “I miss you,” “I’m still here,” or even “I’m sorry” when you can’t find the actual words. They’re playful and cutesy and fun when things are easy between us. They’re a small comfort when we’re apart and missing each other. And on the harder days when we can’t find the right words yet, they become the way we say “I still love you” without having to say it out loud.
I think that’s the part worth noticing. The big romantic gestures get all the attention, but it’s usually the small repeated ones that do the quiet work of holding two people together. They say the things you’re not ready to say yet. They tell you it’s okay, that fights happen, that you’ll get through it, all without a single word.
Ours just happened to taste like banana pancakes that Sunday.
