Overflowing

We spend so much time wanting to be loved that we forget what a privilege it is to love.

“I love you so much!” I say, as I hang up the phone. I say this every time we talk. Our friendship is easy and comfortable, our conversations funny, and interesting. With some people, everything feels simpler. There is seldom a need to hold back or to translate your thoughts into different terms. And when we hang up, my regular farewell — a warm, effusive,” Love you!” is received as comfortably as it is given.

After our calls I feel replenished. Because it turns out that being able to say, “I love you,” without feeling vulnerable, is one of the things I have missed most as a now single person.

During some phases of our lives, we give love constantly. It’s in the goodbye kiss as you both run out the door, in the text you send to say that your plane landed safely, and. in the note you put in a lunchbox. Love lives in the noticing, in the remembering, in the helping, and the worrying. It’s in a shared glance across a crowded room that conveys an instant wordless understanding, and in the hand you hold as you walk down the street.

When a marriage ends, when children leave the nest, or when a parent dies, you lose the vessel that reliably received it. The person — or persons — who gave all that love a place to go. But though the vessel may be absent, the capacity to love, and the need to offer it — in words and actions — does not change.

Love is active and alive. It needs to flow outward. It reaches for someone to share a joke or a sunset, or to worry about whether they got home ok. It is a phantom limb: the sensation remains even when the limb is gone.

When we talk about love, it’s almost always about receiving. Popular culture encourages that. There are songs are there about looking for love, finding love, and being found by love. Receiving love makes us feel safe and valued. But being allowed to give love — is nourishing.

Maybe giving love nourishes because loving is itself an expression of the self. Receiving love may reassure us that we matter, but giving love allows us to give expression to tenderness, to generosity, to attention, and humor: all the best parts of ourselves.

One of the greatest gifts of this friendship is my friend’s willingness to receive the love that simply flows in his direction, and his apparent lack of discomfort with it. He never makes me feel silly or vulnerable. He just lets me be who I am. And that means tolerating regular joyful expressions of “Love you!” Whenever we talk.

So, when I hang up the phone, I don’t think how lucky I am that somebody loves me. I think, how lucky am I to have someone who never makes me wish I had said less.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.