WARNING: This may be the most politically-incorrect and controversial blog to ever appear on Letter From Elba. So fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy post.
The photo that leads off today’s blog was taken in 1983. It’s Natasha’s first day of first grade and there we were- Natasha, me, partially-hidden Olga the bulldog and three-year-old Nick- waiting for the school bus. I can tell by the pink volunteer smock so casually thrown over the back of my car that after the pick-up, I was on my way to Michael Reese Hospital to host MRPTV Bingo- a game show for very bored patients.
(Read all about it here.)
I waited with the kids each morning. As you can see, my hair was cropped short in those days. I liked my look but it invariably led to the bus driver asking Nick, “Who is that nice little boy who waits outside with you each day?”
This photograph brings back thousands of memories and smiles. And a few lumps in my throat. Where did the years go? It all happened so fast…you know that kind of stuff.
And if I look closely, I can see the look of love and pride on my face.
Which is the big lead-in to what I want to say here today.
I hardly ever say “I love you.”
Not even to my kids.
(I figure if they don’t know I love them by now, they’ll never know it.)
Or my closest, dearest friends.
Not to anybody.
I just don’t say it.
I’m not sure exactly why I find this simple phrase such a stumbling block.
Maybe it wasn’t said much in my house when I was growing up.
I’ll have to ask my brother Kenny if he remembers.
BTW, I never say it to him, either. We’re not mushy that way.
(And besides, he knows.)
I never use it as a phone sign-off either, obviously.
I overhear these conversations sometimes. People are chatting away and then they have to hang up.
“Love you,” they chirp. Instead of “Good-bye.”
When did that happen?
On social media “I love you” is used indiscriminately and often.
I can’t tell you how many FB posts I read that proclaim undying love from the sender to their best friends, their sorority sisters, their bowling teams, everybody.
“Love you” has become then new “Thinking of you,” I guess.
Now I fully expect blow back from you guys.
I can just hear you thinking, “She can’t say ‘I love you to her kids?’ What an emotional cripple!”
Or
“Life is so short, Ellen. You have to tell the people you care about that you love them. You might never get another chance.”
I just can’t.
The words always seem to stick in my throat.
And when I do finally say them, they don’t sound convincing. Somehow they have a hollow ring.
And, as for my love life…
I can’t tell you how many times and from how many guys I have heard, “I love you.”
Sometimes it meant, “I need you.”
More often than not it meant, “I want you.”
Thus I am highly suspicious of lovers’ extravagant declarations of their undying love.
And, after a myriad of trips down the aisle, I have come to conclusion that (love) talk is cheap.
So, don’t expect much in the way of sentimental hogwash out of my mouth, Dear Readers. Even though I am so thankful for your tremendous loyalty, friendship, great comments and general moral support over these four plus years.
I’m just never going to be able to say “I love you.”
(But I can type it.)
I’m the same way. Must have been the way we were raised. Not a big deal to me as actions speak louder than words. BTW did I get you permission to use my photo?
Well, technically no. I meant to ask for your release but some unexpected things came up at the last minute and I forgot. Hopefully you- and the Cubs organization- will not sue me.
I, on the other hand, found someone who knows
that her telling me that is most important and
that I love her back
Do you think that BF will ever hear it? At our
age it really feels good
I hear you, my friend. Luckily, he seems to be built along the same lines as me. Definitely not mushy. He knows the important stuff. But I’m glad you’re getting what you need. That’s music- Eugene Onegin- to my ears. 😊🥂
Interesting. Come to think of it, I don’t remember ever hearing my parents say this to each other, though it was clearly true. Of course he wrote things to her, and put her in the comic strip, and there were pet names (not too embarrassing), but no PDA to speak of. With most of my dates, it was clear that saying the three words would be instant Jivaro dart frog poison to the relationship. And the one date who was effusive also tried to kill me. Sometimes I’ve thought I’d like a little more of that wild Dionysian action. But maybe not really. With wild you get knives.
Thanks, John. I think that generation didn’t say it very much. Think “Henry Fonda” and “Gary Cooper.” The strong silent types who loved their womenfolk but didn’t show it. Or say it. I’m like that, I reckon. The North Shore group loves you. We’d be lost without you. And we don’t (usually) carry knives. ❤
“All knives will be confiscated at the door.”
That’s my motto. 😊👍
It’s only in these last few years that I’ve been able to say it out loud. In a way, my lack of expression simply reflected my mistrust of ‘love’.
Words of love, warm and tender sounded lovely from John Lennon, but from anyone else, they rang hollow. Life is too inconsistent, I reasoned for anyone to be able to claim “love” for anyone else. One minute feelings are warm, and the next, well, they change.
I’m not sure what happened for me to be able to affirm ‘love’. Maybe I’ve become just as hypocritical as the people I viewed lying about “love”; or maybe I’ve become that mushy geezer that cries at everything and is overly sentimental. I’d like to think instead, that after all these years, I’ve found my heart, and I’m not afraid to share it.
Everyone around me says it all the time to lots of people. I do say it sometimes but mostly out of obligation or in response. Somehow it usually feels forced even if completely true. I’m know i said it to you but too long ago to remember exactly. Depending on the time and place, want would have played a role. I can’t recall you saying it to me but it probably happened.
Thank you so much Ellen,
I’m so grateful for your very honest sharing about love. I don’t think you’re alone. I have found many people who felt exactly the way you do.
I feel quite privileged to be raised in a family and social network where there was a field of true love. It’s the greatest gift anyone could have ever given me.
I’d like to share a very powerful teaching that I’ve looked to since it was shared with me in 1973 that has helped clarify for me what love truly is. I’ll be curious to hear what you and others think.
Love,
Terry
Love
Love is granting another the space to be the way they are and the way they are not.
From a talk given on the Experience of Love in 1973
Let me tell you what love actually is. Love is the experience that someone’s all right the way they are. It’s not all the garbage. This thing about songs and all that survival stuff. All the stuff you talk about. What love actually is, is the experience that someone else is all right exactly the way they are. To love somebody you have to choose for them to be the way they are. Exactly. Not, “Gee, if you’d only cut your hair, then… you know, it would be okay.” No, it’s got to be all right just that way. That’s perfect, that’s absolutely perfect, just that way. And, they’ve got to be all right the way they’re not.
Now, if you make something all right the way it is and all right the way it’s not, what’s another word for that? Space. The person’s got the space to be. You know, they can be. They can be the way they are and they don’t have to. Because it’s all right with you for them not to be the way they are. And it’s all right with you for them to be the way they are. That’s love.
The bottom line is to accept the person the way they are and the way they are not, that’s love. Let me put it in more fundamental terms. To be able to tolerate someone the way they are and the way they are not – is loving them. The highest expression of love is the experience that you are creating that person exactly the way they are. They are your creation exactly the way they are, and you are creating the space for them to be any other way. That’s an ultimate expression of love. To create the space for people to be the way they are and to create the space for people to be the way they aren’t.
That’s it. And if you’ll notice, there’s no survival, and it’s not worth anything. It’s not worth a thing. The only thing that happens to a person functioning in that space is that they discover themselves. The person creating that space – you know what happens to them? They discover themselves. That’s pretty much it on love. No big deal. It’s not all that complicated. It is relatively simple, just not so easy to do.
And what I’d like to do is to get to a little bit of what love is, and then take a little bit closer look at what blocks us from experiencing what love is, and essentially love is …. And that’s it. See, it isn’t any more complicated than that. And it’s very difficult to get that. You see, what’s very difficult to get is that’s all there is. All the rest of it is an illusion. You see “I love you” is an illusion. It really is. And I really hate to break people’s illusions up. I shouldn’t say that because I really enjoy doing it; it’s my business. (laughter) And I would really like to communicate that “I love you” is an illusion. And if you take a look at “I love you” you’ll see that “I love you” has to come from … (interruption) … So, this idea of “I love you” is really an illusion and I think if you’ll look at it with me for just a moment, you’ll see that it’s an illusion. If I walked up and say “I love you” that’s got to come out of the notion that I might not. You see, it’s got to come from a sense that there’s something other than “I love you”. It’s got to mean “not other things” and “not before I found out that I did, but now I love you”; and “I don’t love other things, I love you – and not other things”. You see, this whole struggle that you and I go through to achieve love, to get love, to have love, to be loved, to love each other; this whole thing that everybody keeps preaching about is all nonsense.
The fastest way to destroy love is to make a goal out of it, because people who are trying to be loved come from a place that they’re not loved. And people who are trying to love come from a place that they don’t love. And people who admonish other people about loving each other, never got it, they just never got it. That’s all nonsense; that admonishment to love one another. The truth is that that’s all there is. And if you take the barriers out of the way, if you take the pretenses out of the way, if you take those things that you didn’t take responsibility for in your life out of the way, what you have left is love. And that’s really the whole story about love. Love is.
— Werner Erhard http://www.wernererhard.com/love.html
This is the most politically incorrect post you have ever written?????
I was expecting something entirely different. I love you for not writing more about Trump (Definitely nyet to that)
I thought perhaps this post was going to be about trans-gendered bathrooms. I love you for not writing about that (I’m confused enough about which bathroom is the right one to use these days).
I had a feeling this post might be about why the ACA should or should not be repealed. I love you for not writing about that (It’s not good for my blood pressure).
Wow, I said I love you three times in just a few short seconds. You see Ellen..that wasn’t so hard!
Take heed of Paul McCartney and Wings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap87QgZKTNw