Kind Words

I was thinking this morning (while lying in bed and reading manga on my morning off) that people don't seem to say really kind, meaningful things to each other.
Sure, we compliment each other. "You did your hair nice today! I love your shirt. You're an awesome artist!"
But these things are all fairly superficial. I never hear people do in-depth praise, except in movies or something.

I've been debating about mentioning this for a while now, and I'm just going to go for it. I don't even care if she reads this. It's not like it should be a surprise to her. She's already accused me of writing secret evil messages on the blog. Maybe some people do that, but I don't. There's nothing secret about this.
The last time someone tried to make in-depth commentary about me, it ended up being remarkably cruel.
It wrecked me for a long time. My confidence and trust were destroyed.
When one of your so-called best friends spends over eight months putting nasty intent behind all your motivations, ripping apart your actions and thoughts, being disgusted about everything you say, and acting like you can't do anything right, it makes it hard to trust people.
It all ended summer of last year. Of course it ended up dragging in other people. One person didn't surprise me, considering she hadn't acted like my friend in a couple years. I guess a second person is okay about it. Or at least better about it. Of course now I'm terrified to talk to people considering how it ended up with that first friend I mentioned.
And no one seems to have any idea no matter how broken I felt, even when I tried to explain it.
I'm mostly better, but I was shot for a long time. I still have bad nights where I sit there feeling like people don't really care about me. They're only hanging around because it's convenient, and if they really know me they'll decide I'm not worth their time. Which is what she did.
Not only is it miserable to feel that way, but it's totally unfair to anyone that actually does care about you.

So, after that crazy interlude, this is what I was starting to say.
This morning I was thinking about how people don't say really kind things to each other. And I thought I should write out pages for my parents and a couple of my closest friends, saying what I really admire or love about them.
It feels very hard for a couple reason. Not because there's a shortage of great stuff about them, but because I've never really thought about the specifics of why I like someone. If I like them, then I like them. I don't try to define it to myself.
And the second reason it's hard is that I've never been very good about saying sappy stuff. Of course the idea is to give these pages to the person they're about. It's gonna take me a while to build up the courage to do that XD

I'd like to ask anyone reading this to try the same thing. In some cases, like with parents that you bicker with all the time, it can feel especially strange.
It's easy to criticize, but not always easy to give heartfelt praise.

But we have to at least try.
How can we not?