Sodium.

I heard once that each of us has our very own language. Languages that are filled with unique accents and points of emphasis; some with complicated vocabulary and others lush with simple words that flow like a beautiful melody. These languages tell the world about our lives. They reveal the tiniest things about us, while other times they reveal the most beautiful, most complicated, most significant things that make us, us. They tell the world who we are, where we came from, what we’re made of. They tell the world how to see us, how to treat us…

How to love us.

I think that is one of the most overlooked nuances of our personalities; how to love us. The way two different people feel love may be even more different than is their DNA or their fingerprints. It may be the most unique part of our personal language, and it is our responsibility, our right, to translate and teach it to others. Yet more often than not, we don’t even personally acknowledge our love language, and if we do, we certainly resist in translating and teaching it to the ones we love. Are we expecting them to be fluent in it naturally, or do we not even understand it ourselves?

My love language seems simple to me, yet I’m learning that its simplicity has absolutely no relation to how obvious it is (or isn’t, as is my case). Mine seems to be running a very covert operation, one that gives very few hints and clues, obvious or otherwise. All that is known is that I want to be loved; everything else is left up to guess and speculation. There are no “atta-boys” or “job well dones,” no arrows or maps. I don’t really expect anyone to accomplish the mission, but I desperately hope that they will.

But what is even more painful for me to accept than my failure to translate my very own love language is my failure at learning another’s language. It wasn’t because I gave it my all and still fell short. It wasn’t even that I simply learned the language and then turned an arrogant face the other way. It was that I was so scared to share my own language, that I couldn’t possibly learn theirs. My fear was so great that life confused my fear of the language with a fear of love, and life being the gracious giver that it is, it fixed the problem. It removed the fear by removing its source: a relationship.

That’s the funny thing about fear, it very often leads to the destination you’re most fearful of and leads to a journey of a thousand falls instead of a thousand steps. I mean really, how can one handle all the gifts that life gives when all they’re concentrating on is fear?

So what does make me feel love? What is my language saying to no one, but expecting people to hear?

Question. Ask me how I am, how I’m feeling, what I want. Sometimes you’ll have to pry and ask a few times, but I promise I’m not keeping it from you because I don’t trust you. Sometimes I just need to know you want to know that badly. Teach. Tell me what you’re thinking, good or bad. I want to know you as much as I want you to know me. Help. There is so much I know I want to learn, and even more that I don’t even know I want to learn. Point me in the direction I need to go, sometimes I lose my way. Nudge me, push me, pull me. Laugh. I laugh as often as I breathe. It keeps me alive and helps light the path ahead of me. I want to laugh with you. See. See me, for all my faults, all my successes, all my possibilities and all my realities. Look into my eyes, look into my soul, look into my heart. I want you more than anyone else to see those places. Hold on. I have a lot to learn, and even more mistakes to make, but all I want is to look up from my leaps and stumbles and see your face smiling back. Feel your hand hold mine, and feel you stand beside me.

And while I have to be brave enough to teach you the words of my heart, I have to be brave enough to not just learn yours, but speak it, too.

That has been one of the hardest lessons I’ve learned; that your language will not feel as natural floating across my tongue as mine feels to me, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t speak it. You deserve to hear your love language from the mouth of the one you love.

And I can’t wait to speak it…