i think when people think about the phrase "i love you", it's usually about expressing affection and letting someone know you care deeply about them and they're important to you. and that's 100% one of the things "i love you" means and i use it to express affection and care and, well, love every single day. whether it's telling my family i love them or expressing just how important mau is to me and how much i care for her. especially when i tell it to her, it encapsulates all these feelings i have and feel about her. how much i miss her, the way i wish i could be with her now and all the time, the way that thinking about her makes me happy and excited to see her again and for a whole life with her, the way that she is the one true love of my life that i feel more comfortable with than anyone, the way she's my favorite person. every time i say "i love you" to mau, those are just a few of the thoughts and feelings going through my head. but i was thinking about all the other ways that people who are very close to one another use "i love you" with each other. this is focusing on my interactions and feelings with mau because i think it's such a wonderful thing and the way we use that phrase is what got me thinking about it in the first place. we use "i love you" is an exclamation of feelings, like the way i mentioned before, it's a way of saying "thank you" or kind of showing that we appreciate and are thankful for not only gifts and material things, but the sweet words we tell one another and the thought behind everything we say and give. it's a way that we reassure each other and thank each other for being there when we need it most. for us, it means “you’re my person and i always will be”. “i love you” means all of those things and more that i can’t quite put into words. and it’ll keep evolving and meaning even more things as time goes on. that’s one of those wonderful, beautiful things about us and what “i love you” means for us, mau.