How I Say I Love You

“What – you love each other?” she asks, catching us in an easy embrace.

We share a smile as I lift my head off your chest and answer her with a slight nod.

“Ok” is the only thing she cares to say as she scampers off with her brother, leaving us relaxing comfortably together in the Sukkah.

But I’m not able to casually stroll on as the weight of those words reverberate through my ears, ringing memory bells in a glorious symphony of cherished emotions.

And so I write as my heart fills with the old feelings of new love and my soul wraps the fragile little me up and gifts her to you as a symbol of the kind of trust only you can understand.

The memories…the things I try to talk about all the time…to keep at the forefront…they are not in the past as we live out our days.  They are here, with me, in my now with you…because they keep me from getting lost in the safety of secured love and forgetting what you mean to me.

Remember…we were on the swing, the one we used to go to when we wanted to run away from everyone…and I stroked your hair and realized I loved you.  So I said it.  I think I love you.  But the wind took my whisper and blew it away from your ears and you turned to me and asked me what time it was.

Remember…when you gave me your necklace and promised you would be back…and I loved you so much that I wanted to get down on one knee and propose to you, and beg you to take me with you…but I didn’t know how to do that or how to say that so I said I think I’m falling in love with you.

Remember….when you called and I was crying and needed you…and I loved you so much I wanted to scream out how I couldn’t live without you but the words got lost somewhere from my head to my mouth and I said It would be nice not to have to cry to you over the phone.

Remember…when it got too much for me to handle and I needed you to know and I couldn’t be afraid anymore to tell you how I felt because if you didn’t love me there was no use living anyway and if you did love me I would be able to start living again…so I sent you a three page e-mail explaining how hard it is for me to trust people and all the different levels of trust and then at the end wrote I can say I love you because I trust you.

I cried all that day because I sent that off and I hadn’t even written the words.  I had only written about the words…and explained the words…but I thought maybe you still wouldn’t know.

And remember…you called…and you said I love you too…and I…have never…been…the same.

Happy birthday my love, my life, my darling.

I love you.