““You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.””

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

I was writing an e-mail last night, and for some reason the way I had started it made me stop and think about the words we use when we are blathering on the page to our close friends and loved ones.

For example, I have a very bad habit of giving people strange nicknames, which they then for the life of them can't shake (enter the Panda and Dread P). Someone I think even described me as a 'nickname virus', which sounds vaguely unhealthy, but I hope was intended to say that when I give someone a nickname, that's it - they have no hope of ever getting rid of it.

Great. I am the equivalent of an STD for pseudonyms.

Hee hee.

Seriously though, the language of like and love is something that I feel very grateful for. I like expressing how I feel in words about those who matter to me. I like very much the fact that they express the way they feel in return - but I don't expect the return. For a reason.

It's as simple as writing to someone 'you are gorgeous', because they are. Using affectionate expressions is something many of us seem to be afraid of, because there is a chance we will be rebuffed in the return of call. But unless you express, you'll never know.

If you think someone looked beautiful, tell them. If someone made you happy, tell them that. If someone needs to know you care, for goodness' sake tell them. And don't go into it with expectation of acknowledgement, or because you think you should be saying something for the sake of it; if you do, then you are doing it for self gratification, not because you truly want to make someone happy.

I am massively grateful every time someone I love takes the time to write a word or two of sincere and expressive emotion. It's not gush or guff; it means they simply had to get onto the page - or the screen - that they were thinking of me at that moment in time.

Terms of endearment. They may not be conventional ones, like 'darling' or 'sweetheart'. They don't have to be between lovers. They are simply words that need to be put on a page because not to would be a disservice.

If anyone ever calls me 'nice' however...

That I would not be grateful for. And terms of abuse may become de rigueur instead...

Yesterday was one of those days where I almost wished that I didn't have people in my life that I cared deeply about and loved. Because there were so many individual situations where there was hurt or physical risk.

Sometimes the hurt was in itself a physical pain - but generally it was emotional distress. As for the bodily risk - well, that's another story altogether. But when those we most feel things for are not happy in body or mind, it can be much, much simpler to become something of an automaton - to close off, to turn into metal.

To make our hearts into gears and cogs, not somewhere we store our soul.

Simpler for ourselves, that is. But what happens then to the people who have come to rely on us for support in whatever shape or form we are able to give it?

Are they supposed to just shrug and say 'Oh well, better just pick myself up and forget about them, then'? Simply forget that for a long time, X had our back?

If you have the cold comfort of a new metal skin, with every part clicking away in precision time - and precision blandness - then what are those you love left with, but a smooth, featureless surface personality and a metallic tang to your traits?

Be grateful that love hurts. That caring for others is not easy. Because it is what separates us from the machines. Don't let your heart and mind retreat to the easier world of mechanical actions.

They may make you feel no pain - but you won't feel much of anything else either.

And I for one would not be grateful to lose my sense of anticipation, or excitement, or enthusiasm.

Or love.

Even if sometimes - just sometimes - I would like to forget to wind my own key.