Speak Love

Be Brave

I was 15 the first time I told a friend, “I love you.”

It was the first time I said those words to anyone but a family member, and it felt a little uncomfortable, maybe a little taboo. If asked, I certainly would have said that I loved my friends. At that age, there are few people that mattered more to me than my group of girls — consisting of a group from school and a group from Drama Club, with quite a bit of overlap. Those girls knew me inside and out, they heard my confessions, they gave me advice. We hugged and slept in the same bed and did each other’s makeup and hair (well, I just got those things done to me since I had no talents in that area.) But we didn’t say The Words.

I was worried about my friend, who was depressed. We had been gathered at her house the night before, and she had locked herself in the bathroom and refused to come out. We didn’t know what to do, and her parents weren’t home. We suspected she might be suicidal, but we didn’t know what to do about it. It was a sad and scary evening, and the next morning I was determined to let her know how important she was to me. I needed her to know that it was vital to me that she stay alive and with us. “If that’s not love,” I reasoned, “what is?”

I approached her in the lobby of the theater where we had gathered for rehearsal. I put my hands on her shoulders and looked her in the face. “I love you,” I said. That’s all. She held eye contact for just a second, nodded, and let me hug her.

I have no idea if that moment meant anything to my friend, at the time or in the long run. It did, however, change me. I believe there was empathy born in me from that weekend, where before there was sympathy with a yen for drama. It was baby empathy, to be sure — I was still a teenager, after all. I also learned something new about love: there is power in speaking about it and expressing it.

My parents were not stingy with love — speaking it, hugging and kissing it, modeling it. My mom’s parents also spoke it easily, and lavished attention on us like love frosting. We were coated in it. My dad’s parents were less likely to say, “I love you,” but they were free with kisses and hugs and showing up. Showing up cannot be oversold — I always knew my Grandma Ginny and Grandpa John would be at every play, every choir concert, every time I did something in church. Later in her life, telling Grandma Ginny I loved her was one of my favorite things. She’d seem slightly surprised, then slightly delighted, and respond, “Yes, yes, I love you too.”

I have been lucky enough to have two extraordinary men tell me that they love me, with me being able to say it back with a clear and confident heart. There is nothing like the feeling of hearing those words from a romantic partner — someone you are connected to in ways that continually blow your mind.

I was terribly lucky with my high school boyfriend, Todd. He had dated more than I had, and was able to navigate our way through falling in love in a way I wasn’t equipped to handle. I caught up, eventually, and so much of what we learned together set me up to make (mostly) good decisions in love going forward. When he told me he loved me, I knew he meant it. We understood the weight of it, and I won’t ever forget the ceremony of it. We crossed a threshold, and it changed us.

Dan and I waited. I was ready before he was — he says he felt it but wasn’t ready to say it — and I cheated a little bit. We were cuddling on my couch and I told a story about a girl (who was a good bit like me) and a guy (who was a good bit like him) and how the girl was pretty sure she was falling in love with that guy. Dan was able to gently warn me that “the guy wasn’t quite ready” and the moment passed. When he was ready, I was the first one to know. *swoon*

Some are more comfortable with “I love you” than others, and I try not to cross a line. I have some friends — men and women — to whom it comes naturally, and it is just part of how we speak to each other. On the other hand, I have friends for whom saying it is more of a Special Occasion kind of statement: funerals, weddings, assorted tragedy, etc. This is also fine.

My kids say it all of the time. My daughter texts often and always ends with “I love you!!!!” She also never leaves me without a kiss. My son says I love you whenever one of us leaves the other — leaves the room, leaves the car, leaves the football field. He says in front of other teenage boys. His new thing is texting me, “OK love you moms” and he thinks it’s a riot that I text back, “Love you, sons.”

I’ve started telling my students that I love them. I’m not all intense and serious about it, but every once in a while I’ll look at them when they’re being awesome and say, “I really love you kids.” It’s true, so why not say it?

Love is so much greater and bigger and wider and stronger than we give it credit for being. Expressing love in good and healthy ways makes the world greater and bigger and wider and stronger too.

Thank you for reading.

Love, Susie