It started out as gibberish.
As the story goes, when I was a toddler and my parents would say to me "I love you," I would respond "Monten".
They suspect I was trying to say “Me too” and just couldn’t form the words properly yet, but the made-up word stuck and soon, it became our secret way of saying “I love you” in special moments.
My very first birthday card and every card I received from my parents thereafter were signed with the word “Monten.”
In time, it was used in especially tender moments between me and my parents when the words “I love you” just didn’t feel like enough.
It became sacred.
I never had a desire to say it to anyone else; that is, until I met my husband. As our love intensified, I once again found that the word “love” simply wasn’t grand enough to encompass what I felt for him.
And so, I introduced “Monten” into our marriage.
As we lay in bed the other night, I tried to express the depth of my emotion for him and strongly felt myself lacking for words.
“It’s Monten.” He said, exhibiting just how much he understood me and what that simple word meant.
“Monten” has become the pinnacle of what existence means to me: to LOVE. To BE loved. To KNOW and HAVE and CHERISH love.
It is where love begins and ends in my life.
It has become compassion, friendship, and dedication. It is loyalty and purity. It is devotion that you feel in the very depths of your soul. It is wholehearted acceptance for everything you were, are, and will ever be.
And, funny enough…it started out as gibberish.
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