Life's too damn short not to love people. Love them. Love them, love them, love them, and tell them. Tell them loud, tell them quiet, tell them in the unexpected moments. Show them in a million ways.
Right now, me and some of my friends are watching She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (the new one) which I have never seen before. I *love* it. I love the range of body types and personalities and designs the princesses have, I love how everyone, good or bad is messy and imperfect, I love that there's character growth, I love all of it. (I love Scorpia and Entrapta and Mermista best so far, but that's like saying I love chocolate ice cream better than butterscotch - I love ice cream so much, the difference in preferences is slight.)
But you know what I love best? I love that the whole reason we are watching it is because I said "I have so much trouble watching new cartoons, there is so much going on and so much story to keep in my head and I keep forgetting about things, it's frustrating" and a pile of my friends went "what if we watched it with you? You could pause to ask questions, or to excitedly yell and handflap about stuff, or to say that you need a moment because a scary thing, or for us to remind you who is who, anything like that, and it would just be really fun to watch it again with you. Plus, we can turn the captions on so it's easier to follow what's going on." (For the most part, they've already seen it, I'm the only one who is completely new to it.)
I love that my friends didn't dismiss my accessibility needs. I love that they were like "yep we know you forget and get distracted and stuff, but that's okay!" So we watch it using Netflix Party, we take turns pausing for questions or "OMG DID YOU SEE THAT" or "whoa, need a second, that was a lot" sorts of moments, and it's just...nice. Plus, the show is SO much fun, and it gives us a thing we can do together when we don't have a lot of spoons for our usual cozy gaming or whatever.
That to me, that's love. That's people seeing me in my all together true, loving me as I am, and working with me so I can experience a thing.
There are so many ways to show love. Especially right now, when the world feels so dang short on love, and so big on fear. Let's tip the scales a little, together. Find ways to show love, tell love, breathe love, live love - and let's teach each other that it's okay to tell each other how much we love each other. Because trust me, we all want to feel that.
