Another interesting little quirk of mine in that period (around 5
years of age) is that I had an almost religious devotion to
maintaining the sanctity of the concept of love.
I remember thinking that love was such a big issue, such an important
thing to say to people, that I didn't want to devalue it by telling
people "I love you" when I wasn't completely certain. The funny thing
about this is that, being very literal, I also had to define, for
myself, what "certainty" meant in the context of love. So, for
example, I would ask people these types of questions: If you don't
love someone anymore, does it mean that you never loved them to begin
with? (the endurance and changeability of love) If you love someone,
do you get that _feeling_ each and every time you look at them, or is
it possible to love someone generally though the love feeling occurs
in brief, random moments? (constancy of love and the translation of a
feeling to a more conscious sentiment)
(This last question actually led to sort of comedic incidences because
it would cause me to often ask my parents to hug me very tightly, as a
sort of "test." If I didn't get that instant "I love you" feeling, I
would cry and tell them "I don't know if I feel the love! I just
don't know....," and then I would get upset about my inability to love
my parents and the extent to which this hurt their feelings. My
parents, on the other hand, thought this was just amusing; they knew
that I loved them and that I was just paranoid.)
These were actually huge philosophical questions for me, and I read as
many novels as I could to try to figure them out. I thought that if I
studied relationships in fiction (and in real life) I would be able to
figure out what worked and why and have a better idea of what "love"
was, in its most pure, untainted form.
The irony in this whole ordeal of attempting to define love is that,
though I claimed not to be able to understand love, I knew on a very
deep level that it was precisely this questioning of things, while
everyone else was either assuming or simplifying, that demonstrated
the very depth of my discernment.
Also ironic is that I was so hypersensitive to "lying" to people about
loving them- i.e. saying "I love you" when I wasn't quite sure that I
did- that I was actually labelled as fairly cold and unemotional by
the majority of my extended family; this in comparison to my sister
who people referred to as "sugar" because she gushed "I love you" to
everyone she met.
By the time I was about 8, I realized that I'd have to sort of give in
to other people's use of the phrase "I love you" if I didn't want to
keep unintentionally hurting people. So, I forced myself to say it to
my uncles, aunts, etc. I distinctly remember this because it was the
very first time in my life in which I silenced my inner convictions to
the demands of conventions of the outside world; pragmatic on my part,
because I realized that people would interpret me the way in which
things were manifested, I also knew that this would not be the last
time in which I would have to reconcile my inner "language" with that
of other people. (Another example of this would be telling someone
"I'm sorry," so that the person is comforted when they express bad
news, even if you're not reaaaaaally sorry, or even something as
subtle and subconscious as mimicking another person's tone and
mannerisms during a conversation.) This realization was, however,
distressing to me, and I remember mourning the part of me that had
"died" for some time after that.