There are things I’m very good at telling people.

I will tell you when I am angry. I will tell you when something is funny. I will tell you a completely inappropriate story with entirely too much detail and absolutely no prompting.

I will tell you about the mountains I climb. The thing my therapist said. The thing currently testing my commitment to personal growth and whatever minor inconvenience has become my entire personality for the afternoon.

What I am not particularly good at saying is: There is a deep hollow ache inside of me.

It’s not the dramatic kind or even one with a clear reason. Just the quiet kind built from a life of hurt and disappointment.

The kind that makes a house feel too quiet. The kind that makes me realize I’ve spent too many days alone with my own thoughts. The kind that doesn’t necessarily need fixing.

It just needs another person in the room. But I never say it.

Instead, I call my friends. There is no grand announcement. No Hello, I’m currently experiencing an emotional crisis and would appreciate your presence.

Because well – absolutely not.

It’s more like: “When are you coming to visit?” “I miss you.” “I’m looking at plane tickets to Denver for October.”

And sometimes, they show up at my door. Sometimes, they call more often. Sometimes, they send letters wrapped in pieces of their worlds.

But they always show up.

That’s the part that I can’t stop thinking about.

I call and they answer.

I never have to tell them about the hollow ache inside of me. Maybe they know a little. People who love us tend to notice things we think we’re hiding brilliantly. But I’ve never sat anyone down and explained it. I’ve never said that sometimes I need their noise.

I have never told them that their presence makes my life feel inhabited again. I don’t know if my friends know how many times they’ve saved me. How many completely ordinary conversations mattered more than they realized.

Maybe that’s why I’m writing this. Because I should tell them.

I should tell them that when I call, I’m not always okay.
That I miss you meant exactly that.

And sometimes it means: Life is really heavy right now. I don’t know how to be alone with myself. Please remind me there is more to my life than whatever is hurting.

I write a lot about the people that have hurt me. About what they took. About what surviving them did to the way I understand life and love.

Maybe I’ve spent too much time studying the people who hurt me and not enough on the people who answer. The people who come.

The people who love me so consistently that sometimes I forget how extraordinary that really is.

So this is my love letter to you.

For every drive.
Every plane ride.
Every phone call.
Every stupid joke.
Every dead horse.
Every adventure.

Every text me when you get home.

Every time you let me be quiet without making the silence uncomfortable.

I never told you how deep that hollow ache was. Maybe I never needed to.

I called. You answered.
and you came.

I hope you know that I will always come when you call too.

I love you.