Like most people nowadays, although I know a lot of people I have only a handful of really close friends and, I'm happy to say, I think I probably embarrass them every single time I speak to them! How do I manage that? Well, it's really easy, I tell them I love them before we say goodbye.
Yep, I'm that embarrassing friend who tells you they love you! Not drunk "I love you" (after all I've been sober for over 3 years now so no more drunk dialling from me) and not "love ya" as an afterthought. Nope, it's a stone cold sober, deeply heartfelt "I love you" and I don't care if I do embarrass you! I also tell my family - all the time - that I love them and I don't care if I embarrass them either.
I've been that embarrassing friend and relative for a long time but after losing my big brother and then having serious health issues myself, I've gotten "worse". Or perhaps that should be "better". Yes, I have definitely gotten "better" at saying "I love you" and I'm going to keep on saying it.
Why do I want to keep on saying it, especially when I know it probably embarrasses people? The very last conversation I had with my big brother before he died ended with him saying "love you sis" and me saying "I love you too". Just like every conversation we had. Nothing unusual about it. But when I saw him a couple of weeks later he was unconscious and, although I spent his final week at his hospital bedside telling him how much I loved him, I don't know whether he could hear or understand me and he certainly couldn't say it back to me. I take so much comfort though from knowing with absolute certainty that not only did he love me but he knew how much I loved him; because we told each other, all the time.
So, I make no apologies for embarrassing you and I encourage you to try it. Let's start a love wave!! Let's make a point of telling the people we love, just how much they mean to us; and if you can't say it then try writing it in a text or email.
Why are we so uncomfortable with expressing our emotions? Is it good old British stiff upper lip? Or is fear of rejection? Not all of my "I love you's" get a response (some are met with an awkward cough!) but I don't care! I'm not looking for validation. I'm just making sure that when my time here is over, the people I leave behind will know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, how much they meant to me and what a positive impact they had on my life.
So, all together now, I LOVE YOU!!!
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