“I love you”: the power of words
“Can you just imagine it? Being on your first deployment and having to clean up a little girl’s guts?” It was 10pm on a Saturday night. The window behind us showed a picture of snow falling on the ground, the temperature just below freezing. We were three soju bottles deep, sitting next to each other for the first time in months.
We were having a conversation for the first time in months.
We’ve been together for over a year, and he’s been gone for about three quarters of it. Deployments, TDYs, possible PCS — the acronyms don’t end with the military and it becomes a second language. I learned to stop asking “what does that mean?” and just take it upon myself to just Google later on. It was a life I was thrown into, and a life that I was still trying to figure out. He didn’t need all the incessant questions, and I didn’t need to feel his frustration.
“What’s the scariest thing you’ve seen over there?” He paused and looked at me, raising an eyebrow. “Do you get shot at?”
“Every day,” he shrugged, as if it was a normal, casual thing. “It’s more dangerous for us to be on the ground than in the air.”
“Is it scary?” I don’t know why I was pushing — I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to know. My mind had a replaying movie reel of deserts, minefields, and gunshots ricocheting in every direction. My inner eye had it’s own private showing of Saving Private Ryan trying to imagine what it was like for him during deployments.
“Do you really want to know what it’s like over there?” His gaze turned intense, eyeing my every move. He was always so good at reading me, knowing in an instant what I was feeling. “You look like you’re about to cry from everything I’ve told you of what my crew members have experienced.” Not wrong. “I don’t tell you what I go through because you’ll just worry.” Cue the word vomit.
“That’s the thing right there! I want to know what’s going on with you, even if it sucks. Even if it’s scary. Even if it makes me worry because you know what’s worse than knowing? Not knowing. I want you to talk to me. I’m not a child, I can handle it.” He stared at me for what felt like an hour and my nerves began to tingle because while he was good at reading me, I was never that quite intuitive with him.
If there’s anything the military really taught him, it’s how to be stoic as hell, and boy, was he a rock.
I’ve always been the type to be annoyingly expressive about my emotions — even if all I did was stub my toe, all of my closest friends will know about it within the hour and I will let them know exactly what that table made me feel. Words have always been my escape, and language is all I’ve ever known. I’ve grown up filling out journal after journal, writing blog after blog. I’m excellent at creating the perfect first date text, and even better at ripping my ex a new one via email. I understood the meaning behind them, connotations and tone and all. But I am absolutely, terribly awful at vocalizing how I feel.
And so was he. Therein lies the biggest flaw of our relationship.
As we sat side by side, shot by shot, the minutes ticked on and our booze supply ran short. Before either of us knew it, it was 2 in the morning and we still hadn’t moved from our positions. I looked at him and it hit me: we haven’t talked like this since we first started dating. A real, sit down conversation without our phones in our face, without a television playing in the background, without force, without a layer of weariness, without bars. It was the strangest phenomenon to me — we were in a long distance relationship. All we did was talk! We’ve racked up minutes day in and day out on the phone with each other, so how is this conversation any different than the others? Was it the alcohol? Was it the late night post dinner food coma? Was it the winter backdrop?
When he broke the silence and began to talk about what it was he did during his deployment — all the stuff that he didn’t tell me during our 5 minute Skype calls throughout it — suddenly, I saw him in a completely different light: he was just more than my boyfriend, he was this whole other, incredible human being with so many experiences and so many words about them. I could have sat there and listened to him all night. And it wasn’t because I was obligated to, but because he actually captured my attention. Even if we weren’t dating and he was a random Joe on the street, I would have sat there for hours listening to him talk. It was a wake up call for me at that moment, because subconsciously up until now, there was a part of me who loved him for the idea of him. There was a part of me who idealized this man into someone I wanted to know, instead of taking more time out to really get to know him. I’ve spent my entire dating life preaching “I want to date my best friend” and then forced whoever I was with to fit that ideal — for the first time in almost 25 years (only 6 of those viable for a relationship though), I appreciated what that concept meant. Sitting there, still in our dinner clothes, at my sister’s kitchen table while she was sound asleep in her bed, talking about literally everything we could think of, I realized that this overtly sarcastic, gentle-hearted giant was my friend on top of my boyfriend. Our relationship changed in those four hours. Another wall has broken down, and I was relieved to know that it was gone for the better.
Everyone tells you that when you get into a relationship, communication is key. It’s practically a cliche now with how often it’s used: talk to your partner, communication is so important, don’t assume what they’re feeling, and so on. It’s everyone’s go to advice whenever something goes astray and luckily, this is the one cliche that will never go out of style. I know everything about him: his favorite color, his favorite pair of shoes, his favorite food, his birthday, his longterm goals and dreams. But at the same time, I don’t know anything about him. I don’t know what goes on when he’s half way across the world from me. I don’t know what he’s thinking about right before bed, when he’s gone quiet and staring up at the ceiling. I don’t know what he feels when he’s given yet another order. And that’s why communication is important — because I can know all of those things if I just ask. If he just talks.
Communication is for more than just trying to resolve a fight; it’s getting to know your partner for who they are, not for just who you think they are. That night could have gone very differently — I could have hated all the things he said, all of the words he used. I could have decided that hey, he’s just not the kind of person I thought he was. I could have realized that we were two completely different people who want completely different things. But I didn’t. I learned that even though he has a callous, nonchalant attitude, he notices everything I do, every emotion I have, every worry I don’t express. I learned that we have a shit ton of annoying inside jokes that nobody else thinks is funny. I learned that he really, really gives a crap about me.
I also learned that we’d totally kick ass at the Newlyweds game.
“I love you” before were just three words that I always felt a little bit obligated to say, since it was just something that happened during relationships. It was always one of those milestones that every couple eventually reaches, even if I didn’t totally or exactly feel the same way. I’ve said it to two guys in my entire life — one of which cheated on me, and the other decided that he had too many regrets about us three years later. I’d like to believe I meant those words when I said it to them, but it didn’t feel like it does now. The weight of “I love you” gets heavier with each relationship, and I’ve grown a slight fear of saying it.
Once you say it, you can’t take it back. That’s the power of words.
He and I took about 6 months before I brought it up. And then we never said it again. Fast forward to around the end of his second deployment and beginning of his third, it became more regular. But casual and discreet, as things usually are with him. The more he said it, the more I wanted to hear it. To those who say that “I love you” should be used sparingly have never been in love — there’s nothing more beautiful than to hear those words come from him. I’ll never get sick of it, that’s for sure.
And that’s the beauty of it: it’s three simple words, very basic sentence structure, almost zero fluff to it. It’s straight to the point, it’s three syllables, and it carries our entire relationship on it. Sometimes, you just need to cut out the bullshit.
So here’s the thing I’ve learned during this holiday season that I hope you’ll take with you: conversations are life-changing. Words are more important than I thought they were. All those people who preach “I’m in love with my best friend!” aren’t just self-entitled kooks who like to show off their relationship on social media. “I love you” is simple and heavy, but when it actually means something, it’s a phrase you’ll want on repeat. Loving someone for the idea of them is easy, but loving someone for who they are is incredible.
Lastly, communication is key.
