Commitments

I have been telling people that I love them a lot lately. I throw it in at the last minute as I'm hanging up the phone. I text it at the end of a short dialogue. I say it into people's ears as I'm hugging them. I even find that after years of signing notes "Go Gently," I have switched to signing them "Love,".

It must be the wedding. This desire to pull the people who are important in close and bind them to me with expressed feelings must be a reflection of the process I am in the middle of with Jacob.

We believe that most romantic relationships need the formality of public expressions of commitment to be sustainable. Why wouldn't the same be true for platonic and familial relationships, as well. And the words, "I love you" express a commitment to care about a person's well-being and to take steps toward helping his or her well-being to be positive. They are a commitment to hurt when the other hurts and grin widely when the other succeeds. They are a commitment to entertain and to laugh.

These are good commitments.

I'm going to continue making them.