Is there an assumption that as we grow older we learn to love?  Or that we are born knowing how?  Sometimes I unravel whatever anxiety I find in myself to a fear that I might not know how to love.  A fear that I will offend, a fear that I cannot truly perceive the love that others extend to me, a fear that I cannot truly express the love that I feel to others.  And how does one?  In words, in thoughts, in gifts, in music?  What is the sincerity of love?  What is sincere love?  How does one feel it, how does one give it?  Is it important that it is explicitly expressed, or does its existence negate any need for superficial display?  When a person says "I love you," what are they saying?  And why are they speaking those words?  If it is true, if it is not true, what is the need for them?

But I say them to my family and I believe them.  And even though I can hear certain strains of uncertainty in love, there seems to be an underlying truth to its presence, perhaps only compromised by the distractions of living to which we all have to attend.  Perhaps love can only live in death, where there is nothing to distract from it. Perhaps we can touch it in this world in the gaze of another person, in a moment of music, in laughter, in extreme sorrow, in nostalgia.  Maybe it can saturate more and more of our world until our insecurities dissolve and we can trust in its presence, and need little else but it and our breath and perhaps then, not even that.