For your eyes only

When I was a little girl, I found myself in awe of the power of words. Of course, I was inundated with negative ones, realizing early on that words could hurt. Being a sensitive person, words were used to constantly chip away at my self esteem... until I learned that there were other kinds of words, building words, healing words, even loving words.

I truthfully cannot remember hearing my parents tell me they loved me, especially in my early life. They probably did - they say it enough now. But my memory, so vivid over little things (collecting rolly-pollies with my sister, digging up the backyard to make a garden that my dad ran over with his lawnmower the very next day, crawling under the backyard trailer to help my dog give birth to her puppies) cannot find a time when those words were spoken to me - until I was in high school and it was a boy saying them...

I will tell you, hearing that someone could love me, with the weirdness, the lack of grace, the general teenage awkwardness mixed together with a worldly outlook that didn't seem to fit in anywhere... I will tell you, it was frightening and liberating all at the same time.

Once I believed it, that is.

There is a part of me that will always believe that it was hearing those words, honestly given, that have allowed my heart to be as open as it is. Once you realize that you can love one person, it is a very simple thing to fall in love with so many others. And I did, more times then I can count. The very word - love - is probably the most powerful word there is. It is noun, adjective, verb, healer, saviour, creator. It can be tossed around with abandon or held tight to one's chest, whispered, texted, sung, screamed, without losing an ounce of its power.

Every person I have ever loved in my life continues to thrive within my heart, whether they are near or far. And for every person I hold there, there seems to grow even more space, for more to fill.

And every time I say 'I love you' to someone, whether its for the first time or the millionth, I say it carefully, as those words, more powerful than anything, more precious than anything, (isn't it the only thing required by God?), are a promise from me.

No matter how we end things, if they end, or if you move away and years pass before we speak again, or if its too late for me to say it one more time because you are already gone from this world, my love - like my heart - is a constant but growing thing.

And if you have yet to hear it from me, if I am the first one (just like that boy so long ago) in your life to tell you, or if you think I do, but you aren't quite sure... let me make this very clear.

I love you.