Miss you...

I think when people say "I miss you" they really mean "I wish you were here"

When people say "I miss you" I think they are meaning "I miss you, I want to talk to you."

And then what follows invariably confuses and frustrates me, because the "I miss you" is it. There is no call, there is no trying to regain connection. It's simply a statement- I miss you.

So I think FINALLY, during a sleepless nap, I have found the key.

"I miss you" doesn't mean, I want to talk to you.

It means "I miss you, I miss your life with me. I wish you were here so that we could have relationship."

It's a nostalgic statement; a longing for what was.

It doesn't require that work will be done for the friendship to continue or grow, it simply means that what we had meant something, and I wish we still had that.

And that TOTALLY makes sense!!

What I always thought it meant was "I miss you, I want to talk with you so we can have relationship." So when someone says "I miss you" it follows that they WANT something to change and have the ability to change it, through a phone call, a text etc etc

But most of the times a text or a facebook post is it, "I miss you." There is no response, even if a reply was made.

I am of the family of "I miss you, let's talk"

I miss you, so I want to talk with you. When can we make this happen?

It's not a nostalgic longing of the past. It's an awareness that I miss you, something is lacking, so it needs to be fixed.

It's even better when people (sadly I am not included in this), simply think "I miss you!" and therefore call or text to bridge that lacking gap. The skip the "I miss you"s and go immediately to the fix. Because these people really miss you.

The other people, just miss what was. If they really missed you and wanted relationship, why don't they call? It doesn't make sense!

If they missed you and it bothered them, why don't they remedy the situation? Instead, they just sit in their awareness, doomed forever to miss and never to have.

So to those who miss, there are two responses:

"I miss you" "Yea, we had some great times."

or

"I miss you" "Ok, then call me. Set up a date"

I, of course, am not terribly wonderful at keeping in touch. I miss people on a regular basis. But when I have the time or ability, instead of saying "I miss you" and leaving it at that, I make plans to talk, because I MISS THEM. Saying to them that "I miss you" is not enough. What does that help? Now they know I miss them, but I'm not serious enough about this twinge in my heart to DO anything about it.

Now, there are those times where it takes me FOREVER to talk to someone I've been missing for a while- such as paige or abbey. In which case, I've neglected the friendship for so long that I need to just throw them a bone. "Hey, I just want to let you know I miss you ALOT, and I suck at calling. I'm SORRY!! How are you?" At least then, there is a tiny fix to my overall problem; a bandaid to the gaping wound that is this lack of relationship. But the people I love and who love me, are important to me. I like to take care of them. And although I don't talk to them as much as I NEED or they NEED or we SHOULD, I still want to communicate to them that I care, I love, and I miss through ACTION more than just words.

Words, as many know, are cheap.