Love you without the I (a belated valentine)

A young couple at the Y, going their separate ways into the locker rooms. He disappears into the men’s, says, “Love you.” She, bent over the water fountain, murmurs, “Um-um.”

Rings on their fingers. Newlyweds. “Love you” tacks the fabric of their love in place during this forced 15-minute separation.

“Love you” is not the real thing, not a surge of emotion and desire. It’s not the same as “I love you.” It’s a salute to the real thing, a hope, maybe even a superstition that if you stop saying it, the real thing will disappear. If you stop saying it, something will change.

Of course, things will change no matter how hard they try to prolong the honeymoon. How long will it last, saying “Love you” every time they disappear from each other’s sight? Who will be the first to stop? My guess is the woman. She had her mouth full of water but already it was a ritual grunt rather than the actual words. And he said it first. Soon it will become a squeeze of the hand, not quite so public as the words. Then maybe a look. Then nothing, at least in public places, at least when it’s a matter of a few minutes apart. And then “love you” drops away to the end of phone calls, and then only sometimes.

Sometimes, after nearly 45 years of marriage (phew!), Vic and I still say “love you” at the end of phone calls. Love you without the I. It is decidedly not the real thing. No words can contain the real thing, not even “I love you,” though it is worth pulling those words out of ourselves now and then to acknowledge the magnificence of a lifetime together. We do need the words but the longer we are together, the more power they carry, and the harder they become to say.

All marriages are different and all marriages have different seasons. Sometimes going silent on I love you or dropping even the love you’s means you’re freezing up on each other. But sometimes it’s just a great love that needs to be held in silence and the comfort of dailiness. Sometimes you have to sit in the same house but out of sight from each other, each at your computers on a gray day in March because you don’t have any idea what to do with this huge, bright swell of your hearts.