I Can't Stop Loving You

Before you read this, listen to "I Can't Stop Loving You" by Kem.

I had a whole different post planned for today. Something lighter, maybe. Something that fit the eve of Valentine's Day script a little better. But then this song came on — Kem's "I Can't Stop Loving You"— and I realized it had been a minute since I'd heard it. A couple years, actually.

And I fell right back in.

It wasn't just the song itself. It was Kem's voice. The way he sings it. That yearning. You can hear it in every note, every repetition of "I think about us." He's not performing heartbreak. He's living in it. Still.

This isn't your typical Valentine's Day song. There are no roses, no candlelit dinners, no promises of forever. Just raw honesty about what happens when forever ends but love doesn't.

What makes this devastating is how he holds contradictions in the same breath. "I think about the day you left without speaking" sits right next to "I think about the love we had for our children." That's the complexity nobody wants to talk about when they're posting heart emojis and couple photos.

He's not moved on. He's not healed. He's stuck in that space between what was and what can never be again. And he's honest about it—"I don't know why." That admission hits different. Because most of us don't know why either. Why we can't let go. Why certain people stay with us long after they've left.

But even in his weakness, even in his inability to move forward, there's something he holds onto that matters more than the relationship itself: the children, the laughter without reason, and the moments that built a life. That's what endures when the relationship doesn't.

Love doesn't always look like the Valentine's Day industrial complex wants us to believe. Sometimes it looks like someone still feeling everything they're not supposed to feel anymore. Sometimes it's about honoring what was real enough to leave permanent marks, even when it's over.

To yearn for someone is to earn them in memory—sometimes even when y'all can never be together again. The sentiment is enough.

Until next time,

Tricky Sol