Love is transient. It comes and it goes much like the tide does as it approaches the shore. It ebbs and flows and isn’t something tangible for us to harbor onto. It can slide through your fingers like the tiny grains of sand that downpour as you struggle to hold on. It isn’t rare but, it is unique. Love has puzzled the deepest people for a meaning for centuries and we still don’t have a solid definition to embrace. It is complex to explain love yet we are taught that “it just happens”, “it’s supposed to be easy”, “you’ll just know” and then I sit here confused because it never just happened or was easy and I still don’t know.
The English language offers only one word to encompass a multifaceted experience. An unconditional love towards family, the platonic love towards friends, and the multiple colors of love we feel romantically are all defined by a single word, a single phrase, “I love you”. We use these three words in the most mundane instances and in the most intimate and that may be why it seems to have lost any meaning.
I’m guilty. I love a lot of things and a lot of people. I love my family. I love my friends. I love anyone that rubs my back. I love Drake. I love the pizza delivery man. I probably love you and I will blurt it out when I feel it. There is always someone who will preach not to say “I love you” unless you mean it but, I do mean it. I really do love Drake but, in a different way than say my mom. I don’t see anything wrong with saying it, as long as it is true to you.
If I learned anything this year, it was to never resist telling someone you love them. Things happen; terrible things, great things, and it is these imminent things that you will be unprepared for and that will tear you apart and keep you up at night with regret for not telling that one person you loved them. You may not feel the same way in 30 seconds, minutes, days, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t real or worth the jump. To carry things like that inside of us for so long calls for a heavy heart and a weight that will sink you to the ocean floor.
Love takes over and can be irrational, messy, and beautifully destructive or it can be calm, mature, and reasonable. Love will dominate your heart and your head and has a way of tuning out anything your beloved is saying. They tell you about their day or breakfast or cat and all your thinking is “I love you”. “I couldn’t find my green tie this morning”. I love you. “Where’s the remote?” I love you. “There’s no more pizza”. I love… It’s word vomit, it’s uncontrollable, it makes you want to scream it at anyone willing to listen and that’s why you need to say it. You feel it, so say it.
Those moments I fought and suppressed saying “I love you”, I’ve regretted at one point or another. I let the moment pass and wish I hadn’t. It’s okay to tell people you love them and you don’t want to lose them and how much they mean to you, it could make all the difference. I’m not exclusively talking about a significant other; tell your friends, parents, dog, cat, bird, waiter, anyone.
Now, telling someone you love them because you mean it is different than saying “I love you too” for all the wrong reasons. It is okay not to say it. Pressure and anxiety develop as you notice the panic in someone’s eyes as they search for the right words, as the try to fight it, but just want to grab your face and cry out that they love you; let them but, don’t feel burdened to respond if the feeling isn’t mutual. The first time a boy said he loved me, I said thank you, and I meant it. I know I sound like a brat but, it really is wonderful knowing you are loved and deserving of their love. I loved him, a lot, but told him when I had the same hopeful fear in my eyes. He deserved to know I said it because I wanted to, not because he did. I think there is more respect in saying what you mean when you are ready rather than being scared to hurt someone’s feelings and well, lying. If they said they loved you for the right reasons, then the relationship shouldn’t be over because you or they didn’t say, “I love you too”. So, if someone has ever made you feel bad for not saying “I love you too” or for saying it and not meaning it, know you’re not alone.
We all love differently; more, less, deeply, open, closed, calmly, aggressively, but one thing we have in common is the great capacity in which we can love and that is something that shouldn’t be wasted or withheld.
I understand it’s scary as hell being honest and open and vulnerable and actually allowing yourself to vocalize your love for someone, but you know what else it is? Worth it.