By Joey Assam

This love I have for you – it’s hard to describe, yet easy to feel. It’s difficult to convey save for the actions of every day life. I don’t know how to tell you that I love you without making you uncomfortable or scaring you away. I suppose saying it isn’t really necessary, since giving the condition a name doesn’t change its qualities…however, I can’t help but feel there’s something to say about the inability to say it at all. I understand that receiving love, and loving someone in return, is terrifying. You’re not the sort to make yourself vulnerable and neither am I. Love makes you weak in a way, I guess you could say…but more importantly, it makes you strong. This is just one of the reasons that I love love, and love loving you in particular.

You seem to want a definition…yet I don’t have one. I will never have one. Love, at least to me, includes so many things that I don’t even know where or how to begin. Yet if you can’t just trust that you love someone, that you think of them more fondly than others in a peculiar way; admire them for the things that make them who they are and respect them for these very same attributes, then maybe you will never be able to love. Love is and will always be a leap of faith. Just like in life, there is no sure thing in love. You just have to trust. There is no answer – you just know. Yet there’s no way to ‘know’, especially if you pick it apart. Eventually love will be destroyed by all the prodding, analyzing and dissection.

If there is any way to ‘know’ love, any sort of way to describe or define it , it is that it is highly subjective. Love, at least to me, is selfless yet completely selfish. I love you for who you are and would do most anything for you if you needed me to. This selfless love is something quite gradual that grows as I get to know you better and catch glimpses of your innate, immutable qualities – your kindness, your integrity, your character. While human beings are continuously mutating creatures, I do believe that there are things in us that are tested by life and time, yet do not change. This is the foundation of a human being, maybe it’s the soul, I don’t know, but these are the very things that I see in you every day. I can’t help but love this man who exhibits many of the qualities that I admire, and also hope to possess. Selfless love leads to selfish love. I also love you for my own sake. for how you improve my life by driving me to be kinder and more understanding; changing the way I see myself and the world; making me question and even strengthen my beliefs and values. Yet it’s also just as simple as the fact that you make me feel wonderful and help me enjoy life just a little more than I would without you.

I want to know what you think about love. I admit, I don’t understand why you shy away from love the way you do. I can’t help but think that the more one stresses over ‘knowing’ what love is, the more likely he will be to let it slip by. There is no way to ‘know’ other than by the standards you, and you alone, create for yourself. As I’ve already said, it’s a scary thing, but it is so worth the risk. And if you think of love, and if you think of possibly loving me – I hope you realize that there isn’t much risk involved. If you haven’t already then I haven’t been doing a very good job of being your friend this year and your friend of nearly a decade to come

I am sorry for bringing up something that obviously makes you uncomfortable, but I hope you can understand the position that I am in. I am completely in love with a man that I am not sure loves me in return, or even wants my love at all. Please don’t be mistaken – this is not an ultimatum, and my feelings for you won’t go away. I just want you to think about love. And possibly loving me. Or at least raising the issue of why you don’t love me, or why you are wary of love.

I truly believe that life is too short to let fly by without telling the important people in your life how you feel. That, in effect, is why I wrote this letter. I just hope that one day I have the courage to say it to you.