Last week, in the middle of my class, one of the boys blurted out "I love you!" to me with his hands spread open followed with a childish smile, my heart laughed, I'm sure he meant "I appreciate your effort" or something to that effect, what with their limited English vocabulary.. 

Or maybe he did mean "I love you", whatever he meant by it, I said "thank you" and carried on with my lesson for the day, it's amazing how us, as kids perceive love in it's purest sense, saying it out loud so lightly, how easily we let it go, how often we say it and actually mean it to people that matters to us, no matter how little they have done to make us appreciate our existence.

And how sad it is that as we grow an inch or two, the three words seem to weigh more and more, how guys think that saying it means chopping off a pound of muscle off their sculpted bods and eventually doom their masculinity, whatever they perceive the word to be.. and even women as they age manage to associate expressing love as a sign of vulnerabilty and weakness.

How nice it would be if saying "I love you" was as innocent as a child's gesture of appreciation, as meaningful, and as sincere. When they say "there's always a child in everyone" may it be when we say those three words... and to serve it's one and only purpose, to get your message across...

To say hey, "I love you".