When I say "I love you"

I am learning that I care a lot more about people than I realized. That I fall in love with people almost instantly and that I care for them more than they will ever know.

The words "I love you" will never express the true feeling behind what it is I have. It's just not enough, it's not enough to say I'm here for you, I care about you, I love you. It doesn't make a difference. People hear those words so often, the phrases are just thrown around, meaningless and empty.

When I say the words "I love you" my whole body feels it, my whole being is trying to express something that cannot be expressed in a simple phrase.

When I say I love you, it means I will sacrifice myself for you, I will put you above myself and forget any problems that I have/had just so that I can be there for you. I will cry with you, laugh with you, tell you that you're stupid when you say you just don't want to deal with it anymore. I will genuinely be there for you.

You can call me at 3 in the morning, and while I might be tired and groggy and not all there I will listen to whatever you need to tell me. I wont discard you like some people will, I wont lie and say I'll be there and then tell you to go away.

I feel things that don't even seem possible to myself. I have instincts about things that are right 100% of the time and I still don't trust myself on them because I think it's ridiculous. I almost feel like a mind reader, I am so observant to what you are feeling, I will back off or come closer. Yet when it comes to words I fail miserably at expressing myself, at least in person.

When someone is hurting, I feel it all over. Aching from my heart, down my arms, up my back and into the pit of my stomach.

I genuinely care about the well-being of others and it is my top priority to take care of them. I get used, walked all over, discarded like yesterdays trash, but it saves lives and I'm more than happy to do it, even if it gets terribly lonely on my end. Love is always worth it.

I lost a friend recently, it's been hard on me because of how deeply and quickly I care for people. I don't think anyone can understand the feelings that I go through when something like this happens. I feel I have no right to feel the way I do because others have known them longer, had closer relationships... or whatever. But I feel like I didn't do what I was supposed to.

I get placed in people's lives for a reason, usually one reason only - because they NEED someone to care. They need someone to take the time to say hey, I see what's going on, you're not alone. Well this time I backed off, I said people hate it when I care so much, they just want me to be there if they need to vent then move on. I don't need to say how much I care, how much I'd miss them, I dont need to ask the typical questions that I normally ask about suicide and self-harm, I will just be 'normal'.

The conversation with myself went like this;
"Ask him Cherise, ask him the question. Ask him if he's suicidal, you know that he is, ask him."
"No, that's ridiculous, he's happy. He's not suicidal, besides he's got Alex, Alex isn't oblivious he would notice."
"Cherise, ask him, talk to him. He needs you."
"No he doesn't, he doesn't even know me, he would think it was weird and then I'd lose a friend once again."
"Cherise, you know that something is wrong, you can tell you saw it in his eyes. Ask him."
"No, I wont say anything about it... "

Don't second guess those conversations, always ask. I've lost a friend and I can't help but to think that maybe there might have been something, anything that I could have said that would have changed his

I'm no longer going to doubt my instincts, I will ask the questions and I will be there for people.

And know that if I say I love you, it's a verb not a noun.