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As I've gotten older, more and more of my friends say some variation of "i love you" when we go our separate ways after hanging out. It's something fairly foreign to me because I grew up in a home/family/culture where love was almost always unspoken. When I think about it now, I'm not really sure why that is on an individual level (meaning, my parents were both emotional people who didn't shy away from sharing their thoughts and opinions) - I'm sure that there are ties to confucianism and filial piety and obligation and unquestioned baseline expectations for treating family members that, in other cultures, would be met with lots of thank yous and i love yous. But in my family, "i love you" was saved for the side of a hospital bed, for waving goodbye at the security line at JFK, not knowing when you'd see each other again. It wasn't something that was casually thrown into daily conversation, almost as if it was a jinx that would bring about unspeakable misfortune that would demand a desperate, clear vocalization of love.
So now, in my adult life, I've had to adjust to saying it. At first, it was just to fit in with my friends: after all, it's terribly awkward to let silence linger after a confession of love, even if platonic. I would force myself to say it, usually quickly and quietly, just a slight "love you too" accompanying a hug and swift turn away. But as I said it more and more, I realized that it isn't a harbinger of bad things to come - rather, I had just been stingy with my love, or at least with my vocalization of love, all my life. With my friends, love developed slowly and quietly, a third party who we knew was in the room with us but never addressed. With the people I've dated, hand-picked and bared everything to, I never said it when I should have. I wanted to, yet was afraid. I knew they loved me too, but it still felt like a risk to say it aloud, as if vocalizing it would push it into the spotlight and scare it away, wasting the words and ruining the feeling.
But if a penny saved is a penny earned, what am I saving my love for? Who am I saving my love for? I doubt I'm spending it on myself, and I think I've accumulated more than enough to spend on my family. More importantly, why does it feel like love is a finite resource when it actually appears as readily as the air we breathe? Not to say that clean air always will (or should) be taken for granted the way it has been until now, but the same way that a deep breath naturally inflates my lungs, I have never struggled to summon love. Yet that love is channeled through homemade meals, folding laundry, trinkets, postcards, favors, inconveniences, building furniture, everything but the words themselves. And as you might be able to tell from this blog, I do love me some words.
All this to say, I had dinner with a friend today. She walked me to west 4th, then gave me a hug and said i love you. I said "thanks, this was a great first date" and she laughed. What I meant was, I love you too.
I'm going to try to be more generous with my love, with my words. Because without saying it out loud, you never really know if they see and hear you. Meals, laundry, gifts, favors - those are prepackaged presentations of love, but I think it deserves and needs to stand alone now. So if you say "i love you" to me and I try to dodge it, please hold me accountable. Shout it at me until I shout it back. It will be embarrassing, but we both deserve to hear it.