Hi You’re Doing Great And You’re Perfect.

I have a friend and she is perfect. Her name is Tolani and she’s one the most precious persons I have present in my life and might be for just this second but this how I feel. She doesn’t know this of course. I can’t really tell her how perfect she is because it might be too much or too out of nowhere, too corny or too sappy. But I do really want to tell her how perfect she is everyday. This is a difficult task for me because no matter how much I want to I just can’t and will settle for telling her in my head. I do that a lot — saying things to a faint whisper of air in my head instead of the people who probably need to hear them.

I do want to tell them, I do want to say “Hi you’re doing great and you’re perfect.” but isn’t that ‘too much’? it seems too much. And I don’t really want to be too much. I would much rather bottle my these hidden praises in my head, freeing them on their birthdays when it is socially acceptable to spoil your closest companions with beautiful words and gifts than become ‘too much’.

Speaking to people, saying 100% all the things I want to say to them is problematic for me cause firstly I am so bad with words (as you can tell), I’m really good at the ‘I love you’s and ‘I miss you’s sometimes, rarely, (seldom) I do like these very short and concise ways of saying what I really mean, burying all my tenderness and affection underneath three words or less, less being; “You’re Great!”, “Fantastic.” and “Wow!” I do still hope people can tell the affection that underlies there. I do hope.

intense (adjective): having or showing strong feelings or opinions; extremely earnest or serious.

The first time I was called intense I really sat down and thought about it, I say that like I don’t sit down and think about the smallest things every hour of the day but this time I really sat and thought about it (again an everyday thing but this was just slightly different). It’s just a word, so why would just a word evoke so much emotion in me — “Deola you’re being a bit intense don’t you think?” and fuck did I think, all day even. I eventually decided that it was a bad word- intense that is, I decided that it was a bad word. And I didn’t want to be a bad word, I wanted to be a good word like enough, sufficient, adequate and the likes of. I wanted to be balanced between a lot and small.

I tried really hard to be that, I thought a lot about the things I’d say and when I’d say them and how I’d say them, I tried to put a lot of jumbled up and mismatched emotions into simple words in order to seem just right all of the time. I don’t know if it’s easy to tell but I failed at that, woefully. The effort took a huge toll on me and became more of a habit, minimizing how I felt and being as concise as I can be, I downsized and belittled my feelings and at the end of the day I kind of ended up being nothing as opposed to the everything I think I was before.

It’s 12:38am and I have consciously decided to stop minimizing my feelings, I want to say a lot of things without feeling ‘extra’. This process will (hopefully) begin by calling Tolani and letting her know how perfect she is.