“I love you” for the right reasons

My favorite response to “I love you” isn’t it echoed back, it’s simply “I know”. For a long time I used to say “I love you” just so I could hear it back. I was so insecure within myself and in my relationships that I needed this constant reassurance that I was loved even if it wasn’t real. I just needed to hear it, just needed to feel like I had value, that someone cared at least for just that moment. I was so lost and alone and broken. I said “I love you” just to hear it back. I didn’t love me, but I hoped that if I poured everything I had into someone else maybe just maybe they could pour that love back into me, make me whole, fill that void, but that’s not how that works. I was a broken person giving out pieces of myself in hopes that someone would put them back together and hold them in place. That’s a lot of pressure to put on another person and no one on earth is capable of putting me back together except me, but I didn’t know that. As I’ve been been healing I say I love you not to hear it back but in hopes that you hear me. I say I love you because I want you to know that you are so loved. I say I love you because I need you to know that it’s true, that I mean it. I say I love you because it means something to me. I say I love you because I need you to know it. I love myself and I’m surrounded by constant love and I want to share as much of that as I can. I say I love you because I want you to feel it.