I Love You

Well, not you. Maybe I could if I knew you more. Then, my husband would be jealous, and while that would be amusing on some levels, I prefer to keep some distance. (Disclaimer: My husband is a swell kind of guy and puts up with a lot. Whatever I write you mustn't think it's him. It's not. It's me. I'm selfish like that.)

I'm talking about my family. Somewhere in an earlier post-- I'm too lazy to find it even if I have only 6 more-or-less postings-- I made a note to tell my family every morning and every evening, "I love you." How easy is that? It's like a no fail New Year's resolution. Only evil people would fail at something like that, right? I think I just stole the horns from Angelina Jolie's Maleficent. Seriously. I'm wearing them now while sitting on the couch and eating pound cake. Fail. Fail. Fail.

I'm not even at the end of the week, and I already messed up. While my two oldest squirmed through school, I sat here and realized that I ushered them off without saying three simple words, which is not, by the way, "Fail. Fail. Fail."

As I moped about a mommy failure, it dawned on me that I could at least say it to the youngest who hasn't even started school yet. So I yelled out, "I Love You!" and she yelled it back, in the same way. I suddenly wish that I could be screaming and yelling "I Love you" to all of them and all of them screaming and yelling it back. Shoot. I would qualify that as quality 'love' time, which was another goal of mine. I think I'm doing okay on that part though. Lucky me, the kids like stories and we have spent some time reading picturebooks together. I guess it's the introvert in me that just has a hard time expressing in words what I feel shouldn't be necessary when it can be expressed in actions. But I understand that other people need to hear it to feel it too... especially children.

And what about my husband? I have settled with texting him "I love you" in the mornings and whispering it to him at night when we are in bed. It's the nature of long days and work weeks. This is not going as perfect as I imagined.

I know, in terms of reality (no fairy tales), that the world won't stop to notice that I missed a morning. Even this blog confession will probably not go beyond one person-- if I even have a reader out there. My family doesn't even know about my goals, or even this blog. I know, though, that my world stopped when I realized I didn't do what I said I would do. It's so easy to talk about what you are going to do. It's much harder to execute. Even if the execution is really just talking... saying three words, "I love you."

This afternoon, when the other two kids come home, we'll hang out. When we do, I know what I'll tell them. It's not always easy being an introvert in an extroverted world, but I'll do it because I really do love them and I need them to know that too.