Thank You, I’m Sorry : How to Say “I Love You”

Delaney Couri

“Can I hug you?”

She wanted a hug, so I gave her one. “Of course,” I said. I knew it was going to be a forever thing the first time we walked under the Century Tree holding hands. She’s truly a forever friend— a hand holding, silly, friend. There is nothing explicitly romantic in our relationship, but the longer I live, the more I become convinced that every friendship is romantic, it’s just not the kind of romance that gets written about. In this way, my relationships with my friends are outside of the range of the English language. They’re decidedly platonically— in a romantic, dramatic, highly devotional way.

So, in honor of Valentine’s Day and each of the loves that I share which are beyond language, I have decided to add my name to the list of writers and vagabonds who have written about that ever elusive, ever important subject called love. After all, what is worth theorizing about, if not love?

Writing this blog was not an act of resistance; to bring love into a world that can feel loveless. It was a necessity, and I wrote it for the same reason that flowers bloom up through the cracks in the concrete-- because they have to. This blog burst forth from my fingers onto a keyboard like a love note you want to send but never have the courage to, so you write it, recklessly, with abandon, not for anyone else, not even the person it is about, but for you. I wrote this blog for myself. Because while loving someone else may seem like a great way to serve them, really, loving others has done more good for me than I will ever be able to convey to anyone else.

Let me start at the beginning. I have learned all I know about love from so many sources, with music being the most prominent. One way I share love is through music because, as much as I can say in this blog post, a single melody could say all this and more, with ease. I have learned about love-- and heartbreak-- from Joni Mitchell. From Taylor Swift. From Gavin James, Elton John, Nat King Cole, Tom Kitt and Bryan Yorkey. I have learned how to live with love and how to live without out. I learned how to feel love as joy from Ingrid Michaelson and how to feel it as pain from Sufjan Stevens.

Love is not an emotion on its own. Being in love, feeling love, can be agony or bliss, it can bring ruin, it can bring transformation. Sometimes love brings nothing at all except for a hitch in breath each time they look at you.

I have loved (and been loved by) so many people that the only thing I am certain about is this; per my favorite muse, F. Scott Fitzgerald, “There are all kinds of love in the world, but never the same love twice” (1924, public domain, “The Sensible Thing”). In honor of this quote, I want to share a few places that I have found love in the past few months:

I have found love in the notes left in the margins of books and articles, lent to me by friends and professors alike.

I have found love in the moments when someone compliments me, so I smile, which makes them smile, and then makes me smile for a second time, because we love to make each other happy.

I have found love in horoscopes sent to me on social media.

I have found love in colleagues that tell me that, as far as I wander, I will “always have a home” in their space.

I have found love in the most unexpected of places and the places that have felt comfortable for years. I have found love in challenges and trials. I have found love in people, in pets, in places.

And as great as love is, it has also brought me questions. About the very nature of love, in all its gentleness and tenderness. Because if I only see the love, what am I missing? Is love without consciousness worth anything? Is love hollow without context or is it redeeming entirely on its own?

In other words, does radical love require radical action?

I think it does. Because love, though kind and gentle, is also fierce. Love can be a form of affirmation and apology.

Like the title of this post.

I distinctly remember a moment last semester when I hurt someone I care deeply about. We had gotten into a conversation that left both of us feeling drained and, upon following up, both cried as we sought to share our perspective and pain with the other person. Because my preferred love language is physical touch, I told them that to really help me resolve the conflict in my head, I needed to give them a hug.

When the chance came for our hug, as I pulled away, I was overcome with so much emotion that I accidentally said, “I love you.”

I had never said I love you to this person before and was a little embarrassed. As I explained to a friend later, what I had truly meant to say to the person I had hurt were two things; thank you and I’m sorry. As I was explaining I realized that my admission of love was actually not a mistake. Thank you and I’m sorry, when taken together, are actually the truest way I know how to say “I love you.” Because love is messy… and everyday, I’m sorry that I don’t love better and thankful that I have the opportunity to love at all.

So, on this commercial day of love, I hope that you have the courage to share love with someone. The kind of love that extends past words, past romantic couplings, past existing definitions. I hope that you find new ways to say I love you and remember that, if all else fails, you can always create a whole new language to share how you feel.

Thank you and I’m sorry. Happy Valentine’s Day.