Can I Really Say I Love You?
Can I really say I love you? After everything I’ve done? That you’re my life, my inspiration, my strength, my all?
Can I really say that? After all the pain I’ve caused you, all the times I failed you, all the moments I seem to have forgotten you?
I’m not who I thought I was.
When I first met you, I thought I could be there for you. I thought I could be a support, that I could be faithful, loyal, better than so many others.
And when you opened your heart to me, when you filled my life, you made me complete.
You gave me a happiness that I could never have imagined.
I wanted to be there for you, to make you happy like you did for me. I wanted to see you smile because of me. I wanted to see you become happier and stronger because of me. Because of what you did for me, because I felt I owed everything to you, I wanted to do the same.
I wanted to give my life to you, to make it one with yours, to tell you with my whole self, simply that I loved you.
But now years have passed.
Eight to be exact, since we met and you changed my life forever. I thought that I could be there for you. I thought I could support you. That I could help you achieve your dreams.
I worked to become one with you. I wanted to think like you, feel like you, talk like you, be like you. I wanted your desires to be my desires, your dreams, my dreams, your plans, my plans.
And when you asked me to go away with you, to start a new life, to leave behind my dreams, my plans, my home, I said yes.
I thought I could do it. I thought I could be there for you.
Eight years have passed, and what do I have to show for it?
Need I say that I wasn’t what I wanted to be? That I didn’t live up to what you sought from me?
That I was weak?
That I failed?
That I let you down?
Not just once, but again and again and again and again.
Yet all this time you kept picking me up.
You were patient. You told me it was okay, that nobody’s perfect. You told me you still loved me and still wanted me at your side.
And I got up and kept trying.
This journey, this relationship wasn’t what I thought it would be. Instead of being there for you, it was you who was there for me when I stumbled, when I fell apart in front of you, when I couldn’t go on anymore, when life seemed to lose its meaning.
Through it all, you were there.
And after all this, can I say I love you?
Do I even dare say those three words? Now that I see that when they first left my lips years ago, I didn’t know what they meant? Those three words that people nowadays throw around so much so that they lose their meaning? Whose significance you taught me, not in words, but in action? In your patience, in your picking me up, in your gentle gaze, in your simple smile, in your warm embrace?
Can I dare say these words, that after all my failures, my brokenness, my disappointments, that I still do love you?
Even when my actions don’t always show that? Even when I get impatient, complain, and at times walk away? Even despite all the times I wasn’t there for you?
In these eight years, I may not have lived as I wanted to have lived. I made mistakes, I’ve let you down. I’m not a perfect man. I haven’t always been there for you.
But at least this one thing is true: I still try.
I still want to love you just like or even more than I did eight years ago. I still want to be there for you, to support you, to wake up every morning and see your smiling face, even when life gets tough and I’m tired and I’m down.
I’m still here and I still want to give you my whole self. Not just the good you might see in me, but my brokenness as well. Yes, I want to love you even with that. Even with my suffering, I want to say I love you. Even with all the baggage I carry, I want your dreams to become mine.
Even if I know I’ll never be as good, I want to learn to think like you, talk like you, feel like you, love like you. I want to keep trying with my whole self to be the person you want me to be, to be there for you, to support you.
And even if I fail, even if I fall and hit the ground, even if it happens twice, thrice, hundreds of times, I still want to get up and keep fighting for you.
And I do it because you’ve been there for me. You’ve touched my life and given it hope. You filled a void inside my heart and helped it grow. You’ve made my life better. You gave me a reason to live. You gave me meaning. And simply because you’re you.
So, after all these rough years, can I dare say I love you?
I guess I do. Although it may not always be shown in actions done. Even if at times I may not be mister perfect.
Behind every attempt, every retry, every getting back up, every smile, every tear, every laugh, every mistake, every moment are these three simple words.
It may not ever be enough, but it’s all I can give, and with every breath I take I just simply want to say
I love you.
Thank you for spending some of your precious time here.
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