Central Park benches and love
happy Valentine's Day!
When I started thinking about this week’s essay, given the fact that my usual Friday essays lined up with Valentine’s Day, I thought “perfect! I can write about love!”. And then I sat with a blank page for four days. Eventually, I was like “well, I have to write something”. So here I am. Writing something.
A few months ago, I saw a video of different dedications on the benches in Central Park. Some were notes to a lover, some were from parents to their children, others were friends sending their love out into the world.
Many—so many—were laced with longing for a love lost. I can’t stop thinking about those benches in particular, those last notes to a love who will never read the words etched into metal. The promises, the I will always love you. The finality, the acceptance of their loss.
Is that the cost of loving—to lose?
Because we all love and we all lose. Someone. Something. A place. The ice cream shop you visited as a child each summer that got torn down so a shiny apartment building could rise above the parking lot. The dog that greeted you every day after school who now lies forever under the wildflowers in the backyard. The first love. The love you thought was your forever. The love that was your forever.
Is the reward of loving worth the pain of the cost?
I’ve been spending my free time cleaning out my childhood bedroom in preparation for my family’s move, and maybe that’s why I keep thinking about those benches. About loving. About losing.
The other day, as I cleaned out my closet, I found a box with all of my old pictures and cards and letters I’ve received over the years. There were letters from old friends whose lives I watch through my screen now. Letters from my middle school years, when I used to write my cousins every other week because we weren’t old enough to have our own emails yet. Cards from my grandparents, signed with Xs and Os. Notes from my mom wishing me a good week. Birthday cards and silly drawings from my sisters.
Decades of love, buried in the back of my closet—my own Central Park bench dedication.
I read through each one over the course of several hours, reminiscing on old friendships and the innocence of childhood and my family’s love.
As I read, I kept thinking that if my life is this full of love, I have a lot to lose. And yet, for me, it is all worth the inevitable cost.
Maybe that’s just the way love is.
After all, how can we know what it feels like to love if we don’t know what it feels like to lose?
happy Valentine’s Day!
That was maybe not the happiest Valentine’s Day essay, but it’s what I’ve been thinking about lately (can you tell? I feel like there’s been a theme of this type of thing in my writing lately).
Anyways, I just want to say that feel so, so grateful for all of the love I have in my life (and support from people like you! seriously, it means the world!)!
okay! that’s all!
sending you all my love!