I was thinking about this too, Esther, especially after I read your story for the second time (the first time I knew I wanted to write something else and I wanted to sit on it, soak on it so to speak, and then I read it again after I wrote this).

The point is, I think you are right, and my difficulty with saying "I love you" is but a poor excuse for cowardy.

In your previous relationship, he sounded like a gentleman. But I guess one can be a gentleman without being in love. I mean, I can drive anyone, open doors, pay for dinners, and not have that closeness we tend to call love.

I remember now a time I met this person, and the "I love yous" seem to pop out of my mouth. As I said, I tend not to like doing that, but with this person was like a swimming pool on a hot day, an all-you-can-eat buffet with your favorite food (sorry for the metaphor, I'm a guy)! The "I love you" or "you know I love you!" just escaped out of my mouth. I don't entirely know what happened. Never date her, nothing worth writing about happened. And maybe this is because the most worthy stories are meant to stay with us alone.

But I will have to agree with you. An "I love you" is meant to be said. Of course, a relationship may not mean love, and I like to think that love encompasses more than relationships in the way we think about them.

Oh my gosh, Esther. You are making me think more about this than what I think is deemed safe for me!!!!

I think that, in all honesty, there is an element of courage involved in saying "I love you" when one feels it. How is the other person going to interpret it? Am I responsible for the well-being of the person? Am I going to be rejected? Am I going to lose something beautiful if I'm rejected? What about when that train we call love departs, and we are no longer there? Or is it us who depart that station called love?

Nevertheless, I sustain, to love is not to desire. Is love a place? A room we enter? The station I refer to above? Or is it that when with that person or place, or sound, or scent, we enter that station we call love? Is it that those places inspire our being to run there, and stay (until that thunder of life and distraction wakes us up, away from the only reality worth living)?

To love, to be brave.

I love you, friend.

P.