I think I should tell you I love you.

No. Not like that.

I recognized that couldn’t be from perhaps the first night, though I did briefly entertain a notion of hoping it could develop. It couldn’t and didn’t and trust me when I say I’ve got that sorted.

But I can’t shake the feeling that you, somehow and in someway I can’t describe, need this kind of love, or at least could benefit from the sharing of all this warmth. Can’t we all?

It’s a gift when you recognize you carry it and its reach and effect is ten-fold when shared. I didn’t know for the longest time how to take care of that gift. I wanted to express it to you, but fumbled with my words and grew frenetic in my actions.

But I know that I would be willing to share that love with you because you are going to find (and perhaps already have) how to move in ways that make such incredible sense. So much sense that it startles you for not having found this way sooner. Because any of your residual uncertainty and doubt will fall away, and I will love you all the same throughout the passing of time because I’ve always been quite certain of your strength.

Even as you’ve picked me and put me down at your leisure these last months, toyed with me or not known how to make up your own mind or what it is you really want from me, I think there are elements of this love you could find within that might redeem you or remind you of your own journey. Even as you sit with the heavy and then push on to a new, more difficult trail that leads so steadily away from me. Even as you leave without a word or simple acknowledgement of my time, always my time, and still I carry love for you and send it your way.

Not because I’m holding out hope. Not because I’m desperate. And not because I expect it back in any way, but because it feels good and right and necessary to share that with you—someone I don’t owe a damn thing to.

But that’s not what this human thing is all about, things owed or tallied, scores or match points, wins or losses. I have encountered many striking individuals from all walks of life, yet it seems I carry some form of joy, light and good thought held exclusively for you and my continued simple hope for your well-being. There is an astonishing ease and natural navigation of this light and right now it’s softly directed at you. Surrounding you. Lifting you.

That might sound silly or washed up, but I’ve received so much support recently from less surprising places and I have never once regretted someone reaching out and sharing the good, or helping me feel comfortable with my passion and compassion. I hope you don’t mind my attempt to do the same.

I am wishing for you all the time and space you need to come into your own more than you already have. And for you to find (if you want) or don’t find (if you don’t want) someone to travel with you on that journey—whatever feels right and thrilling and brimming with possibility. That’s the love I want to share with you.

I am learning how to carry that with myself and for myself, but somehow I have felt that it is imperative that you know my love and light and hope is sent your way.

I don’t want or need anything from you. This is my simple acknowledgement that sharing this light is enough, and to hold back would bring heaviness. I want you to know that you are—as much as I can know in my limited knowledge of you and because something in the universe leads me to continue to believe so—a carrier of change. And the world needs you to be out running, chasing, climbing and pursuing the good and difficult, and then lighting the fire in others in whatever way you can.

So go ignite and delight in the buoyancy of inspiring places and people, and beautiful ways of moving through the world, even if I am not there by your side. I’m rooting for you. And I carry love for you.

Author: Mallory Turner

Image: Lemuel Cantos/Flickr

Editor: Nicole Cameron