The list of people I said ‘I love you’ to is shorter than my temper | via scoutmagph
February is such an interesting time. As soon as people come down from the New Year high, they go all out and deck their spaces in pink and red. Decorative hearts are scattered everywhere for a largely capitalist venture banking on people’s sensibilities, and we couldn’t help consuming it.
But writing about love is difficult, and just thinking of the people I’ve explicitly said “I love you” to feels like I’m squeezing too many brain cells. Further excluding its variations “labyu,” “love you” and “wuv you” makes the list even shorter, rivaling my Aries sun and mars temper. And I kept this mutually convenient dynamic up until my mother gave me a two-page retreat letter detailing everything she wouldn’t directly tell me. She didn’t have to write one, but she did and safe to say, it was the key to opening the floodgates. As soon as I got home from the retreat, fresh from the good Lord’s holy grace, I hugged her and said those three words—two things I rarely ever do.
It was interesting to me how stingy I was with saying “I love you” like it’s currency, like I’m saving it for some sort of future investment. Yet it was so, so easy for me to give it away casually, too.