Tough Love

Why is it so tough to say, I love you? We can say, I love that dress or I love that play or I love that restaurant, but to look another in the eye and say, I love you, is for some, like doing auto-root canals. Since we can love anything from filet mignon to chocolate drops, why is it we can't say the L word to someone without all of the angst occurring? I am no psychologist, but I think I have an answer. First, I-love-you has taken on a whole sweeping meaning likely brought about by poets and other people of symbol interest. To them, it means commitment to something permanent. It means a promise to cement one's very existence to another's. That's impossible. No wonder, it's hard to say. But, no. Love is a simple, small word with keen meaning but it is like very fine china: strong and breakable at the same time. Fine china is translucent and delicate but with care, you can make scalding hot tea in it and it will not break. You can wash it for hundreds of years and it retains its lustre and colour to serve, likely, until time ends. On the other hand, in a split second, it can shatter into a thousand pieces and be gone forever.  It can appear beautiful and seem lasting and for no apparent reason surprisingly, snuff out like a spent candle. It can last for a lifetime with no excuse, between the most unlikely folk. It can be brief and pretty like the violet, temporary and exquisite, then suddenly fade. It can joggle along unevenly and inexplicably continuing for decades, as though it were perfectly normal. It can be a solitary endeavor or shared by two - or more. There are no rules with love. Why, therefore, it is so feared to say? And then there are those who do love, but don't know it. They go on for years and years with another person and constantly say, but I don't know how to love, I can't say the word love.  They are already there. That is love. Love doesn't have to be anything but a small word that is re-recyclable.  Like rain, it can come and nourish and grow or, like fire,  burn intensely and go out like  a star whose light continues even after death.  It can happen in memory or imagination or in real life. There are no rules about love. But it is free and freely soars. All we have to do is reach out, grab it and let it  in. Love has nothing to fear.