"I love you" isn't a promise

Too often, I've carried these three words as a heavy promise I feared to break when really, they are a statement of fact. I recently came to realize that loving the people I love isn't about the durability of the relationship or the depth of it: I love these people because they are love and therefore I can only love them. Yes, that's a tautology but I think that's precisely the point. Lin Manuel Miranda said it best: "love is love is love is love", and Gertrude Stein said it way before him: "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose." Not expressing love is simply silencing the facts. I certainly don't have the power to hush the nature of things so it's truly a fool's errand 🤷‍♀️

Here's to many many more I love yous, regardless of the common belief that saying a thing too much waters down its potency. Your name doesn't lose its power to literally turn your head for having been said a gazillion times in your life. Actually, it usually merges with your sense of self quite completely. Why wouldn't the same apply to "I love you"? 🤔

One last thing: try saying it to yourself.