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I don’t think of you as soon as I wake up or right before I fall asleep. Were I to, with everyone I love: I’d never sleep, I’d never work, I’d spend my whole life closed-eyed in bed while my lips shaped each syllable.

I’m luckier than most, I suppose, though I’d wager for some my love is a one-way street. That’s okay with me, you don’t even need to know I love you, I’ll still give it freely. You might wonder what kind of love I mean, before you want to decide if you return it. But it’s not a certain kind of love: it’s not romantic, nor sexual, nor platonic, nor familial. It’s not the kind of love that champions miracles, nor the kind that demands respect or awe from a room. It won’t change the world, and it won’t bring us closer.

Why bother, then, you might wonder. I love you for the same reason I meditate, for the same reason I go to therapy, for the same reason I drink water and track nutrition and exercise. I love you for the same reason birds fly south and bears hibernate: it’s a survival mechanism, an innate need, an evolutionary reflex.

I love your flaws, and your strengths, and the things that you hate and hide about yourself. I love you because you are you, not because of who I think or want you to be. If I wanted a fantasy I could create one, but that fantasy would not be you, and you are the one I love.

I’ll love you always, through periods of silence and bimonthly texting and daily correspondence. I’ll love you even when I forget you are there, when your name is hard to recall, when the features of your face start to fade. I’ll love you when you leave me out of your life, and I’ll love you when I’m thousands of miles away living my own, and I’ll love you if paths bring us together again.

Maybe you’ll ask how: how is that possible, how could I love you even after I’ve forgotten you? How could I love you when I don’t even know you? How could I love these pieces of you, the ones you’ve shown me, without knowing who you are in completion?

I’ll tell you: love is a choice, a conscious action, a transitive verb. And I love you, because you are you.