I have a difficult time believing that you love me, because a lot of the time I'm not even trying. And my mother spent a significant amount of time drilling into my head that effort MATTERS. Like if after I washed the dishes, if one was dirty, I had to wash every single one of them all over again. Which meant I spent a lot of time standing on a chair in front of the kitchen sink (that's how you know kids are old enough to wash things, when they can reach them - yes that's correct, spouting violets now features free parenting tips) which meant I had scaly elbows sometimes from leaning on the wet counter which was not pleasant but what was pleasant was that if I was doing the dishes I got to play my CDs on my mom's big stereo in the kitchen which meant that I got to sing a lot of Backstreet Boys and Best of Sonny & Cher and Aqua (if my friend from the bus let me borrow it) and also practice all of my dance moves that the kitchen chair I was standing on would allow, which meant that what I actually learned was that the worse I was at doing dishes the longer I got to stand in the kitchen screaming about gypsies and tramps and the later I got to go to bed. I have to assume that at some point my mom caught on to the fact that I wasn't quite absorbing the intended lesson and made appropriate adjustments to my chore, because today I am a holy terror to live with and will absolutely THROW A FUCKING FIT if I find a dirty dish in the dish rack. So anyway, the point is, that if you notice me self-consciously rubbing my elbows when a Cher song plays, it's just because inside my head I'm suddenly ten years old again.

Wait, no. That isn't the point. 

It drives me up a fucking wall that you don't always feel like the center of my universe. Because you absolutely are the reason for all of the things. Every weird decision I've made, every freak-out, every last-minute NOPE JUST KIDDING PLANS I'M GOING TO DO THIS OTHER THING I JUST THOUGHT OF INSTEAD, every class I go to and every piece of overpriced grilled salmon I serve to an entitled Upper West Sider in hot pink gym shorts which she loads into her stroller that cost more than the security deposit on our apartment and is big enough to house a family but is only housing one child who is definitely old enough to be walking by himself and is insisting that he DOES NOT WANT AVOCADO IN HIS SUSHI TODAY, everything, all of it, is you. Not for you, exactly, and not because of you either, I wouldn't say, but in a way both of those things and in a better way, neither of them. Because all of it, every bit of it, led me to the place where you and I are together. And that, mi novio, is worth all of the things. 

The problem I'm having, I think, isn't so much that I'm not "affectionate" - I can practice that, I think my story about washing dishes proves that I like to practice things, and I think practicing affection is a combination of the dishwashing practice (important, practical life skill) and of the kitchen-chair-backstreet-boy-dance-move practice (fun, awesome - also, important, practical life skill) - it's more that I have this great big… thing, and I am too small of a…nother thing to properly, you know, thing it. Like I'm a great big stone wall, and what you are to me is a great big ocean, and the ocean is behind the wall. And I only have one teeny tiny little hole in me (GROSS) and the ocean can barely squeeze through it. So maybe you feel like there's only a few drops of water, or sometimes none at all, sometimes maybe the wall looks completely dry, but that's just a trick (because of the very small hole, making things difficult and tricky) and the truth is that there's a whole OCEAN back there and it's actually (get ready) the ocean is actually what's holding the wall up. And sometimes pushing the wall forward. And sometimes the ocean needs the wall to keep it together, because we're a team and we do things for each other.

Are we a team or are we a walled-in ocean? Also I forgot if you were the water or if the way I feel about you is the water. I'm very tired, and the light from the computer is hurting my eyes. I hope you bring me home a pork bun, because I really want one now, except maybe don't and after we go to the movies on Saturday we can go get those mini ones from Koreatown. 

Anyway I left you a present, you'll see it when you come home, and it's never enough but I want you to know that every day that I'm alive you don't ever have to wonder if anybody loves you.