Lori Duff Writes

According to that pop psychology book I haven’t read, the five love languages are        

1. Words of Affirmation
2. Acts of Service
3. Receiving Gifts
4. Quality Time
5. Physical Touch

Allegedly what that means is that different people give and receive love in different ways. If someone isn’t ‘speaking’ love to you in the way you want to hear it, you might not receive the message. Some people aren’t big on saying “I love you” but they’ll check the air pressure in your tires before you leave the house every day, an act of service.

I’m not a psychologist, just a student of human nature who fancies herself above-average observant, but I think there’s a love language that’s missing from this list: worry.

If I’m actively worried about you, that’s how you know I care. I might be interested in the outcome if I don’t love you, but not enough to actively worry. Worry takes effort. Worry takes emotional energy. I only have so much to spare. If I worried about every potentially bad consequence for every person/situation I ran across, I’d never get anything else done.

Naturally, I worry about my kids. A lot. So much, sometimes, that I’m pretty sure they can feel the disturbance in the force across hundreds of miles. Worry, to me, is a form of prayer. It’s me, channeling all the powers in the universe I can summon, and begging them to align circumstances to ensure my preferred outcome.

I am a champion worrier. I’m familiar with the nuanced layers of worrying, from mild fretting to catastrophic freak outs. Thankfully for those around me, I’m a somewhat quiet worrier. I’m not a complainer or a crier. My worry manifests itself in swirling eddies of stomach acid, in tremors and clenched muscles. I’ve destroyed more than one porcelain filling in my molars. A running joke in my family is that if you insert a piece of charcoal between my buttocks during a good worry session, in just a few minutes you will be able to retrieve a diamond.

Occasionally my daughter will side-eye me and ask, “Making diamonds?”

She’s trying to lighten the mood, but I know she’s really asking, “Still love me?”

The answer to both questions is, “Yes.”

Buy my book, Devil’s Defense, or the audiobook, and/or find me on Substack.

Lori Duff

Lori B. Duff is an award-winning author who practices law on the side.  Her latest book, “If You Did What I Asked in the First Place” was awarded the Gold Medal for humor in the Foreword INDIES awards in 2019. You can follow her on Twitter at @LoriBDuff and on Facebook. For more blogs written by Lori, click here. For more information about Lori in general, click here. If you want Lori to do your writing for you, click here. If you want Lori to help you market your book, click here.