To the Moon and Back

“‘And guess how much I love you? I love you right up to the moon and back,’ he said, and closed his eyes. ‘Oh that’s far,’ said Big Nutbrown Hare. ‘That is very, very far.’” My grandma closed the Sam Mcbratney children’s book for the third time that night. I knew every line of that picture book because it had been read to me countless times by my parents, aunts, and grandparents. I loved picture books but I possessed a distinctive interconnection with this one, maybe because of that certain phrase that seemed to follow me throughout my childhood. “I love you to the moon and back.”

“I love you to the moon and back,” my Poppy Sal always used to say when I sat on his lap in the Staten Island house with my cousins. Expressions like this often go overlooked when thrown around, but trying to conceptualize this hyperbolized claim as a child, when exaggerations were not fully understood, was always intriguing. The now ordinary idea of space and the realization that all of us are actually not the center of the universe was at one point utterly abstract and captivating. I would look up at the night sky and wonder how far away that hole in the blanket of night was and, how could someone love you that much? The moon, even sole celestial diction, was my childhood attachment. It was in and of itself a simultaneous comfort and uncertainty, the mystery of it all.

They say loved ones never really leave you, that they cross your path as a monarch butterfly, or reside in the pastels of a sunset, or end up amongst the stars, their presence illuminating the darkness. I was in Lavallette one day trying to capture the last pieces of summer and hold it close before saying farewell. I wanted to retrospectively savor the season before it slipped away from me like trying to cup water in your hands. I obviously was not a fan of middle school. I walked into Lucky, a small clothing store, in search of a first day of school outfit, but the front selection of jewelry caught my eye before I made it to the clothing racks. On display was a dainty gold chain met in the middle with a small crescent. A moon necklace. It was so perfect.

It was not until I was twirling the pendant in my fingers on the car ride home from the store that I looked at the side of the tag opposite the price for the brand name. “Love, Poppy,” it read, in a delicate cursive.

No matter what you believe in, we can all agree that we are exceptionally mere in the scheme of things. It is not that we should undermine our situations and circumstances, but realize that they are trivial in this universe and bigger picture. I feel that is a tremendous piece of perspective. Knowing that there is something greater than us operating in this world allows us to surrender this desire to control everything. This sense of trust rids the persistent sensation that you do not belong anywhere in this world; there is a plan for all of us whether you believe it is predetermined or not.

The moon is a reminder of that piece of perspective for me. Whenever I feel most lost, I feel alleviated again when I hold my necklace or look at the sky, or when someone sends me a picture of it. We all make sense of the world in our own unique ways and that is one of the many things I find beautiful about the human experience.

When I say I love you to the moon and back, it is a way to quantify the unmeasurable. An infinity, a forever and always.

Love,

El.