Hard to Say

When their love was new and they had been courting for a while, the "I love yous" were a regular part of their language of connecting and departing. They were spontaneous and heartfelt. Those utterances were sloppy and mushy and pure as a freshly fallen snow. Neither could believe that a relationship could be so good, could fulfill such a deep need, could cover over so many old wounds and hurts. Now years later, marriage, kids, life's pressures and burdens, familiarity, personal conflicts, financial pressures, and everything else that has come along, have led to little more than marking time along the way. Those sweet, sweet words have long since evaporated.

When their child was just a toddler, he started to get a sense of what his parent's "I love yous" meant and he happily and eagerly parroted their words back to them. It was part of the bonding that nature and its innate instincts bring out. Both the words spoken by parent and child are also snow white. Usually the sharing of these feelings is accompanied by hugs and kisses. Yet what seems to happen so often is that as the child grows and seeks their claim of independence, the "I love yous" dissipate and escape in complete correlation with the disappearance of those hugs and kisses. Ultimately the words are shared no more.

Why does time seem to steal away our "I love yous"?