i ---- you

when on my trip last month, i didn't say "i love you" to reepal very much. i didn't notice it, but he certainly did. he informed me after i'd come back and i was shocked (and appalled and embarrassed). more than once i went thru all our text messages trying to prove him wrong. (tho he wasn't wrong enough to matter.) i don't know why i didn't say it, but i did say "i miss you" a lot.

thinking about it recently, i had the thought that "i miss you" says more than "i love you." subconsciously I feel like I already knew this, and i think that's why i'd been saying that instead.

i love you. to me, it's a passive statement. it says nothing more than exactly what it is.

i miss you. there's longing there. there's a wanting. it's certainly more active than I love you. it's physical. I feel a pulling in my chest when I say it and mean it. my missing you implies that I want to be with you, to be close to you, to interact with you.

when away, I was very conscious of an emotional distance I'd been feeling with rip. I'd not said anything to him about it tho, but I think that feeling manifested itself in my verbiage. rip didn't say anything to me about it at the time either, about me not saying "I love you" and I wonder if he noticed that I'd instead been saying "i miss you" kind of a lot. probably not, as I was away and missing him should've been a given. ...as was loving him, tho I couldn't be bothered to express that...

I have a weird relationship with words. I generally take them too seriously. but I also use them too casually, especially curse words. when asked to describe something in a few words I take forever to do so. in fights I can latch onto one of your misspoken words, even though I know you're not as careful as I. so that's probably all this is. but still. I think I might prefer someone expressing that they're missing me, rather than just loving me.