I usually say “I love you” roughly 17 times a day, to various different people, animals, objects and myself. I’ve always been like this and I’d be surprised if I ever changed for two reasons, 1. I’m stubborn and 2. I like telling people that I love them.

You see, I have this fear that one day I’m going to lose someone and they won’t know that they were loved or cared for and I cannot let that happen. That is probably stemming from some deep seeded childhood trauma never being addressed, but I personally like to think it’s just who I am and since I don’t plan on doing anything about it, I guess I’ll just embrace it.

Simply telling someone you love them can light up their face like you wouldn’t believe.

Life is full of people telling you how to feel, when to feel it, when to express it and why to express it, but in all that mess something big is often forgotten, impulse control (or lack thereof). Throughout your entire life you’ve probably noticed people who just say and do what they want, when they want and at one point in your life you were probably like that for a bit too. That is your brains lack of impulse control.

Whilst growing up we are taught about how our bodies are going through changes but sometimes we are often not told how our brains our changing. When you’re young and you’re not sure how to communicate you just cry or scream, you don’t have control over it, its your brain and bodies way of trying to get across what it needs in that moment. However, as you grow up and you start learning how to speak and picking up other various social etiquette’s, you learn about impulse control; not crying when you don’t get your way, not pressing the fire alarm, things like that. Tempting, I know, but most people can avoid doing those things because they have tuned their impulse control throughout the years.

Flash forward to your horny teenage years and suddenly, impulse control is gone again. You’re constantly on this roller coaster and your body and brain are really just not settling down.

Remember when you were able to not press that big red button? That’s long gone.

Now you’re pressing all the buttons you can and not seeing the consequences yet. Basically, we’re experiencing the terrible twos all over again, but this time we don’t have the excuse of being two. This is usually around the time when people find their first “love” or what they may believe to be their first love.

All the sudden you start feeling butterflies, you’re nervous and you don’t know why, your palms are sweaty* and you’re having a lot of trouble understanding or keeping in how you’re feeling at every moment. This isn’t weird, its annoying, but it’s not weird. The majority of teenagers go through this but something important to note is that, how you handle these years actually will shape you more than you may have realized.

For me, I very vividly remember the first time I said “I love you” and I was absolutely terrified. It was my nightmare because I wasn’t sure if I meant it, I didn’t know what it meant, but I knew I felt something. But we broke up, my heart shattered because that is what I thought was supposed to happen. You have your heart physically broken and then you never heal, I should note, I wasn’t great in school at this point so I didn’t quite understand the human body.

Thankfully, I woke up one day and I realized my heart wasn’t hurting anymore and I was okay. I legitimately thought to myself, “is this normal?” “should I be so fine?” “oh my god, I’m heartless, I’m broken, I have no soul.” The later may still be true but I just moved on. My heart forgot that it hurt to lose someone and I fell in love again. Boom, broken up, and here I am sitting in my room going through the whole process thinking to myself, AGAIN, “oh my god, I’m never going to love again, I’m broken.” Weeks later, okay maybe months, I was fine again. That’s the trend, I was always okay.

Love seemed so scary, but it never was. It was fun, exciting, monumental, liberating and life changing (albeit love was also stupid sometimes). The fear that comes from love, is that it may not be reciprocated or that it can end. But if you stop for a moment and think about all the beauty that comes from it, it quickly cancels out the fears. Falling in love with yourself is always the first and hardest step, but it’s the most important. How can you expect to love someone else if you can’t even love yourself?

Impulse control tried to tell me that I shouldn’t openly love because I could get hurt, but lack of impulse control told me that the reward is so much greater than the risk.

If I can offer you any advice today, its to love as much and as openly as you can, because everyone in this world needs someone and everyone in the world has lost someone. Don’t let a day go by where you don’t tell someone that you love them, when you sincerely do. Family, friends, animals, yourself, objects, whatever makes you feel happy you can love and you should love. Fear can stop you from doing stupid things, but it can also prevent you from doing incredible things; please don’t let your fear of being broken stop you from loving in the first place.

xx your gal, AL.

p.s. I love you.

*moms spaghetti