It was a random night when I realized it. We were sitting right beside each other at Crazy Diner when you offered me a small piece of your chicken. You were talking about your criticisms of the modernization theory after rambling about the film you watched the day before.

I only stared at you and thought: I can do this every day. 

It was also the time I felt a strong urge to say the L word, which I was so embarrassed to admit even to myself. I was above all that mushy and corny stuff, after all—or so I thought. Then I felt it again the next day when you jumped into me after waiting for me on the first floor of AS where I had my last class. Then again, when you were massaging the back of my hand through your thumbs as I complained about the tasks I had to accomplish. 

The urge only heightened the more I spent time with you. I feel it crawling in my skin. And so, no longer capable of bearing the excruciating pain of keeping it in, I told you while you were eating carioca: “I think I L word you already.”

You laughed. “L word? As in lesbian?” 

We both laughed and the tension broke. I felt freed. And you asked again, “Why do you think that is?”

I stopped for a while and pondered. I did not know how to answer it. I only knew that I felt liberated when I told you, and that same emancipating feeling has persistently embraced me ever since we first met. That’s why I have always told you that though we may not spend long times together, I feel more than content to see you every now and then so fulfilled and driven talking about the things you do for a cause much larger than yourself.

And perhaps that is exactly just it. For love is, as Erich Fromm puts it, “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” It’s both a deliberate decision driven by a clear intention. To see you grow as a person dedicated to a noble pursuit gives me much joy. 

Everything with you is easy. To love you is to emancipate myself a million times over, and over, and over again. It is a relentless feeling that frees me, at least temporarily, from the fears that this violent society subjects us to.

I am not above all the mushy and corny stuff I used to scoff at anymore. It is freeing to wear my heart on my sleeve, to take refuge and reinvigorate oneself through love in a society so structurally devoid of it. 

So after a long pause, I answered and joked, “Because we are all condemned to be free.” ●