Do You Say It?

I've been spinning about in my mind why it is that S' short phone call last night was so powerful. He didn't have long to talk, so his message was just the one below.

So thinking about the situation that spawned my neuroses (i.e. my childhood), I realized that my family never said the words "I love you" to one another until quite recently. My parents have never hugged me so much in my lifetime as when I moved away...now I get hugs when I arrive from the airport and when I'm leaving for the airport.

I think I shared the experience of my grandmother's funeral...no touching was really being done...no words of love were being said to one another. I know that it's a strongly cultural thing, but how is a child to understand that.

I have a vivid memory of approaching my mother to snuggle in a public place. I was probably about 5 or so. My mother disentangled my arms from her and told me to go sit down - that I was too old to snuggle.

I don't blame my parents...they were simply reacting to what they learned growing up, as well. But it can cause a great deal of confusion to a child...to not hear that your parents love you or are proud of you. The first time my father told me he was proud of me, I cried. I hadn't known. I was in college.

Even now, my family struggles with sentiment. We tell one another we love each other at the end of phone calls, but it's a quick "love ya!" before the good-bye. Even this feels powerful, in the otherwise relative absence of such words.

So when this man calls, essentially, just to tell me he loves me...it kinda blows me away.