. On Sounding Flat .

. Favorite .

Hi. I love you and I've missed you.

Can we chat for a bit? Pretend you have a cup of coffee and I don't? I'd have a Diet Mountain Dew because no matter how good coffee smells to me, it always tastes awful. I'd keep trying it, but life is too short. And can we pause for a hot sec? Why can't it be straight up love like the first time I tried cream cheese or guacamole? #burningquestions

Alright. Anyway. You - coffee. Me - Diet Mountain Dew.

The Boyfriend and I drove to western Nebraska two weekends ago, and on the marathon trip, we listened to a podcast. I think I was maybe half asleep for the first part - which is my excuse for not catching the title of the story. An actor read this beautiful short story about a lost love and it was surely super important to the point the podcaster was trying to make, but I was a million miles away.

After the deep, melodic voice of the actor read about a coffee house with white walls, brown tea, brown bread ... he read about how the main character told his lover that he loved her for the first time. And - quickly - just like that - she said that she loved him, too.

And it sounded flat, he said. "As answering these things often do."

Flat.

I hate to believe that. I hate to think that way. But for the last two weeks, I've mulled it over. Thought it through and --

It's true though, isn't it? Verbalizing your love and expecting your significant other to respond is not really what love is about, right? Knowing that they know the appropriate response when you call out your love to them isn't the point. It's all very Pavlovian, and that's one word I'm fairly certain I've never used in a blog post.

Think about it this way -

You're going about you're daily life and something happens. You see something. Let's use me as an example. Maybe I see a magnet on my refrigerator that The Boyfriend brought back for me on one of his business trips (as he does and it's one of my favorite things). And I smile. And I think I sure do love that boy. So I tell him. I love him because he thought of me in a different city and he realized that some $2.99 magnet was going to make me happy. So I tell him. And he says it back immediately (because that's just what you do).

Now. Did he have the moment like I did? Nah. Does he love me? Yep. Did his response sound flat? I think so. (Insert shoulder shrug here.) These are the things I ponder on eleventy two hour drives. 

Is sounding flat in an important response a bad thing? No. A non-response, I think, would be a bad thing. Upon further reflection, I've decided that not saying it at all is probably the worst thing. And when I say "it" - I mean ALL of it.

• I love you.
• I need you.
• I like you.
• You're my favorite person in the history of ever all time.

What do you think? For real. Tell me all about it. 

I'll be back in a couple of days with my annual list of things I learned while keeping The General alive for another year. Because he'll be three this week. 

Three. 

If you need me, I'll be over here. In the fetal position. 

​xoxo, B.