With the present, I'm almost superstitious about even considering hypothetical situations. As if, should my mind dwell on a bad one, quantum entanglement or existentialism or some other potential reality of "mind over matter" will assert itself, and I will inadvertently cause that idea to manifest itself.
Part of this was recently explained/validated for me in one of the later Dark Tower books by Stephen King; I don't remember which. In it, he was discussing love. Romantic love, between adults. And he described something to the effect of how if you find it, you can't believe the universe would have allowed you to be so fortunate and that it could be yanked away at any minute. Sorry for the sappiness, but that's how I feel about Chris. Every single day, I am struck - usually in small ways - by the fact that I somehow found the perfect person for me, someone I love and like and can't imagine not living with for the rest of my life. Even after all these years, it doesn't seem quite real.
And that part of me that doesn't believe I have found and could keep something so wonderful insists (constantly) that he could be gone in a moment. The news - now on 24/7 on tv and the internet and magazines and newspapers - only reinforces the voice screaming at me that it's all terribly fleeting and unsafe and unpredictable. So I tell him I love him. A LOT. Like if I go upstairs, or out to the kitchen, or out to check the mail, or to the grocery store or to fill up my gas. I say it multiple times a day. And I mean it.
But on the flip side, there are a lot of people in my life with whom I find myself vocally paralyzed when it comes to expressing my love for them. I love them. SO much. And the same worries about losing them apply equally. I always feel the love. Sometimes - rarely - I verbalize it. But (I think) because I didn't have such a hurdle to overcome with them like I did with Chris, saying it that first and hardest time, when it was so terribly fraught with meaning and fear and confusion, it's more like love is the status quo and should be understood. And so my general Failure To Communicate, combined with the lack of urgency/deadline/expectation to make the declaration by some finite point in time has rendered it nearly impossible for me to say to almost every other human I know.
And it drives me crazy and hurts and makes me feel awful that I can say, "I love you," 20 times a day or more to Chris and the kitties and Sam (and - because I made a concerted effort to make it a habit - to Liam and Rebecca). But I just can't seem to do it with anyone else, even the people I wish it was the same kind of habit with.
So if you're reading this, I love you. Even if you are a stranger and have no idea who I am. I love you and think you are special and important, and I am glad our lives have intersected however they may have done; I wish you all the best.
And if you are personally known to me and part of my "real" life, I'd like you to know that I'm working on actually saying these things to you out loud, hopefully on a regular basis. I wish I could better explain why it is that I can't do it now. And in the meantime, please accept this as my expression of the things I feel and cannot say.
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