"i love you"

Sometimes in a new love affair, the words "i love you" can be disquieting. Off-putting. Deer-in-headlight time, even.
What more clear testament could there be to how broken we all are? For what should ever be more innocent and welcome than those three words, under any circumstance?
But...
"OH LAWSY, what does this person expect me to say or do in return?"
"OH LAWSY, this idiot hardly knows me. Settle down buckaroo, we're already naked - don't overplay your hand."
"OH LAWSY, i want to say that too. But i'm afraid of wanting this person too much...and hearing them say it now, why am i STILL AFRAID?"
It's so easy to get lost in all that, though. Perhaps once or twice in your life (if you're very lucky), someone will say those words to you, and they won't have any agenda. None.
Will you know how to tell the difference?
Not likely. For despite all the love songs and "til' deaths do us part" vomited forth each year, this world does not broker in love. We broker in "what's in it for me". And even the most devout acolyte at the altar of chickflickiah, carries somewhere in their back pocket one rose that's not like the others. One unadorned black rose.* We sometimes even make ourselves forget it's there.
But we never, ever throw that rose away. We would be naked without it. For the first time in our lives - naked. So we save our black rose to offer up on that day when we need to make someone go away.
Don't be too hard on yourself. In this broken world, that black rose is a symbol of self-preservation. And self-preservation ain't wrong.
But...
Once in a long while, the words "i love you" are spoken in a new love affair with pure innocence. Yes, the "premature i love you" is more often about hormones than devotion. And MORE more often, it's nothing but a shameless bid to be treated a certain way in return.
But sometimes...
Sometimes "i love you" is simply the truth. Even if it has only the depth of a puddle, that puddle can be wider than an ocean.
And sometimes...
Sometimes "i love you" is about self-love.
Don't poo-poo self-love! Self-love gets a bad rap, because it gets confused with egotism. But one of life's disregarded truths is that you will never love anyone until you love yourself. Perhaps we all know this...but most have no idea how to live it. So we pretend. We give it our best, because we must. Yet despite the plague of egotism that grips our world, once in a long while genuine self-love blooms. How will you know it, in yourself or another? It will be the happiness that asks for nothing in return. An "i love you" stemming from self-love is not a shabby compliment, either. It's just another way of saying "I love who i am with you...you make me feel like i'm the person i'm supposed to be...you make me feel happy, and worthy of happiness." It comes from a person who is so centered, so at peace, and so blissful that they need to let it out - in gestures, deeds, or words. Words...which even at their best are a little clumsy. We fumble to express what we feel.
I love you.
You're right to be cynical.
But your cynicism probably also means that your own self-love is a journey you've just barely begun...

*thank you, j.d.