Hey Myers,

I hear you. I can relate to a lot of what you say.

But what is love? Sometimes we set the platform by societies standards, not our own individual standards. We look everyday at what is perceived as normal expressions of love, and if we feel we fall short of that, then we are considered to be "unloving", cold or "lacking humanity". I have been accused of that many times in my life.

It is not that I don't love, it is just that my brand of loving is misconstrued, ill-perceived and sometimes fearfully rejected. I am not an oddball that is considered strange but affectionally patted on the head and told "Oh that is just the way Michah is, but isn't she lovely?" by the general population. The people that know me, know my warmth, even if it is not demonstarted or even felt by me. My warmth comes and goes and it has little to do with how I feel about that person generally, it is just the way that I am. But if a person was in trouble, or I see someone being unfairly treated, I am on the case to help them, regardless of their relationship to me. That is a strange brand of love in a way, but love nonetheless.

I love my fiance, but my collection of mint condition, plastic covered, Anne Rice book collection brings me the kind of instant visceral joy whenever I encounter it. I do not experience this kind of joy with humans. The joy is transient and it changes, because people change day to day. It does not provide me with the same kind of joy, because it is not private, it has conditions, it will change. My Anne Rice collection never changes, it does not require me to interact with it or explain myself. It does not look at me strangely or wonder why I don't love it enough or any of those things.

My fiance also understands my inner stuff. But I look at him sometimes and wonder if he would not be more happy with someone who hugged him more, talked to him more or was more loving. But he really, really loves me, despite my deficits and my inherent dislike of being touched most of the time (and he doesn't just love me because I cook a mean roast and listen to Metallica)

You love, dear one. You just gotta find your own brand and not set it to societies norms. I know what it is like to be totally exhausted from "loving". To think somedays "Is this even enough? Is what I think I feel, real?" And maybe you don't love like you would like to, but that is okay too, because you are loved anyway.

You matter, and sometimes knowing that we matter is enough to get us through.

Take good care of your precious self,

Michah