A Case of the I Love Yous

I would have to say, I consider myself a bit of a mushy person. Not that one way of expressing yourself is better than another, but I like letting people know how I feel whether it be my boyfriend, my friends or my family. I enjoy doing small things to show I care. To let others know they're on my mind. I'm the type of person, who in addition to receiving mail, loves sending mail.  I love sending my friends things that reminded me of them, and not saving it for a special occasion like their birthday or Christmas. I've also recently taken to making packages to send my boyfriend, well, just because. With all these feelings that I so generously flail about, I have, however, acquired a case of the I Love Yous.

Lets be straight. It's not like I'm throwing the I Love You out there without caution, but I've recently realized how frequently it makes an appearance in my day to day life. I'm not shy about saying it to friends, or my brothers and sister, or my parents. I just want all of them to know how important they are to me. Verbally. Often times, its not uncommon for me to end a conversation with my college roommate, my girlfriends, my siblings or obviously my parents, with a "Goodbye, love you" that just rolls off the tongue.  Its instinctual. 


Not that this should be taken the wrong way either. I value the, I Love You. My boyfriend is the first person that isn't family or isn't essentially family, who I've shared those words with. Because to me, they have value. And up to this point, no one else was quite deserving of them. But then my case of the I Love Yous emerged.  It goes something like this:

"Good Morning, I love you" , "Goodnight, I love you", "Drive safe, I love you", "Have a good shower, I love you", "I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you."

But I own my excessive tendency. And I kind of, you guessed it, love it. I don't know about you, but now that I have found someone who I love more than I can quantify, I sometimes struggle to find a phrase bigger and better than I Love You. Don't get me wrong, for me, it is the absolute single greatest phrase to hear (besides "Those jeans make your butt look great" which also will never, EVER get old). But sometimes you want a bigger, more meaningful, grander way to express your love. You want to find new words, that let someone know that you love them more than I Love You. More than a million I Love Yous. More than any combination of words that already exist. 

While I search for the words, which will never do justice to the one I love, I borrow some of my favorite words from someone who said it better than I could. And today, on Valentines Day, I share it with all of you in hopes you can share it with someone you love more than I Love You:

"I love you also means I love you more than anyone loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and also, I love you in a way that no one loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and also, I love you in a way that I love no one else, and never have loved anyone else, and never will love anyone else."--- Jonathan Safran Foer