Anything else?

So when do you tell someone you love them? When do you know you love them? What's the difference between liking someone and loving someone anyway? What is love? (As even the groovalicious folk at Deee-lite once had to ask.) A guy could go crazy thinking about it too much. All I know is that (for me, anyway) in the first three months, you're too doolally for rational thought, so you're maybe better off waiting. If you don't feel like running in the opposite direction after that, the outlook's good. But when are you sure enough to actually come out and say it?

In this case, the dilemma was neatly solved for me last Thursday morning as the plane took off. The old lore about XX% of crashes occurring during take-off and landing flashed through my head - as it often does on such occasions. But this time, my biggest fear was that if our upward trajectory should flatten out for that split second before becoming an unstoppable descent, then I would never have got to tell Steven how I felt.

So when we got back from Sydney on Sunday, I was determined to get it off my chest that night. A couple of opportunities passed by ungrasped, until finally Steven asked, as is his wont when we've finished a topic of conversation, "Anything else?" I was silent for a second - and then the words just seemed to blurt themselves out of my mouth, much quicker, higher-pitched and generally uncooler than I would have liked.

But at least I'd said it. Air travel's going to be so much less stressful.