This Journal Entry Is Brought to You by a Pretzel

How a midnight craving turned into a lesson about holding on.

This photo is from Unsplash and taken by Pierre Gui

I’m hungry.

Not the kind of hungry that a midnight snack can fix. I mean really hungry. It’s 3AM and I’ve just fallen down the kind of rabbit hole you only find after too many scrolls and too little sleep. I saw a photo of freshly baked pretzels on my feed…golden, glossy, dusted in salt, and I swear, for a second, I could smell them through the screen.

So, naturally, I Googled them. “How to make authentic pretzels.”, “Why are pretzels twisted like that?”

And somewhere between the baking temperatures and yeast ratios, I stumbled across the myth: that pretzels were created to mimic a child folding their arms in prayer. That the three holes symbolize the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

And I don’t know, maybe it’s the hunger, or maybe it’s the hour, but that stuck with me. Because lately, love has felt a lot like that. Tangled and sacred. Twisted. Holy. And maybe just a little too salty.

Love, I’ve learned, isn’t always beautiful. Sometimes it’s doughy and messy and leaves flour everywhere. Sometimes it’s too soft on the inside and too hard on the outside and burns when you’re not watching. Sometimes it takes a long time to rise. Sometimes it doesn’t rise at all. And sometimes, it snaps.

Because that’s the thing about pretzels: they’re folded into themselves. Like they’re holding on. Like they’re hugging something invisible. And maybe that’s what I’ve been doing too. Hugging ghosts of moments that never turned into memories. Folding myself around prayers I forgot how to say. Holding on to people who don’t hold me back.

I think about all the love I’ve given. Not just romantic love, but the kind you pour into people who don’t know how to catch it. The kind of love that waits. That hopes. That bends so it doesn’t break. And I know that sounds dramatic, but honestly? I am dramatic. Because love is dramatic. It ruins your appetite and messes with your sleep and turns simple baked goods into metaphors for your emotional state.

Sometimes I wish I could go back. To the beginning of a certain chapter. To the moment before it got complicated. Before the silences grew heavier than the conversations. Before love became too much or too little or too late.

But I can’t.

So I write. And I feel. And I scroll through pictures of pretzels like they hold the answers. And maybe in some strange, carbohydrate-driven way…they do. Because pretzels are made by twisting, by taking something whole and turning it into something that holds itself together.

And maybe that’s what I’m doing, too.

Twisting. Bending. Trying to hold myself together.

I’m hungry. But not just for food. For peace. For warmth. For a version of love that doesn’t leave crumbs behind.

And maybe I’ll never get it right. Maybe I’ll burn it a few more times. But I’ll keep folding. I’ll keep twisting. I’ll keep loving even when it feels like I shouldn’t…because that’s what we do.

We love.

Even when it’s salty.

Even when it snaps.