Give me love like never before...

Just had a spectacular weekend.
Friends came down from Palmy for a birthday get-away. We went to the zoo, to Ed Sheeran, drinks and pool (hooray for Murphy's), and just generally hung out on Friday and Saturday.
Ed Sheeran is amazing. I can't even explain it. He does everything himself, and sounds better live than on recordings. Just incredible. Best concert Ive ever been to.

I was worried about being the 3rd wheel (although more like the 7th) but there was another single person so it wasn't so bad.

One thing I realised was how far I have come in terms of being able to express myself. Dad and I have always been close, but I think maybe it wasn't until I went overseas that we regularly started saying 'I love you' to one another, and it was quite awkward at first. Now we sign off each phone call with it, and say it when I leave after a weekend visit, but for a while there it was really hard.
And I think, other than Dad (and maybe Emma, but that was fairly infrequent), Keir may have been the first friend I had that hugged much, and that wasn't so often once we lived together and saw each other all the time. And then Amy came along, and she is a hugger, and expressed emotion very easily.
So over the weekend I realised that I can now hug people all the time (in fact, I crave them far more than I did when I was younger, maybe because I never knew what I was missing out on before?), and rather than being scared of that contact, I love it, and often initiate it too (instead of being scared and waiting for the other person). I also can tell people that I love them without wanting to hyperventilate or cry, and love hearing it too, it no longer scares me if someone loves me. You do have to earn it though - I'm not the kind of person who can just say it to anyone, but for the people I love, its important to me that they know it (perhaps because I now know how nice it feels to be cared about?). It seems like a small thing, but its a major thing for me.