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In my almost eight years of matchmaking, there’s one thing I know to be true: love is like the moon. Case in point: love moves in phases.
Like the moon, love is dependable. You don’t have to see the moon or love to know they’re there.
Both the moon and love are romantic and enchanting, can be moody and mysterious, possess dark sides, and have gravitational pulls on us that we just can’t control, no matter how hard we try.
Normally, I’d just let it go and forget about it, but ever since first meeting you at Lucky Monkey, I haven’t been able to make myself forget. About you.”
“When two people find each other and connect…it’s an inexplicable kind of magic,”
“Olivia, you’ll miss out on good people if you believe compatibility is the one and only way to love,” Bennett says. “Trust me on this.”
“It’s not easy to keep traditions alive when you’re far from family. But over time, traditions, and the way they’re celebrated, are adapted. Isn’t it great knowing about it and enjoying it in our own way?” she asks. “I don’t know,” I say. “Aren’t traditions traditions because they stay the same?” “Liv, life is not all or nothing, and traditions are better alive in one form or another than nonexistent.”
“Owen and I were talking,” I say. “I can see why you picked him.” Bennett’s posture stiffens. “Oh, great. So it’s going well?”
“You don’t have to be compatible with someone in order to love them, Olivia. There is such a thing as attraction that not even a chart or algorithm can explain. It’s an indescribable science.”
“The sun is only pretty when it’s rising or setting, but the moon is always beautiful. It’s bold, bright, mysterious, elusive. We only see it in glimpses, catching it here and there from lucky angles.”
“I care about you. I want to be with you. If I haven’t made that obvious enough, I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t get to say goodbye.” “Because it’s not goodbye,” Mae Yí-Pó says. “This feels like an impossible loss. It will for a while. But you’ll soon learn that this isn’t the end. We take care of our ancestors when they’re gone, and while that doesn’t bring them back here to us, we become connected to them in a different way.”
I’m dancing alone until someone sitting in the back stands up and starts swaying his arms side to side, snapping to the beat. The man does the Twist around amused family members, making his way to the center of the room. All eyes are now on him as he does the Electric Slide between dangling streamers. As he gets closer, I see that the man doing the moonwalk down the aisle is Bennett.
Bennett nods and then reaches for his wallet. From behind a few dollar bills, he reveals a small receipt. On it are the words Lead with your heart written in Pó Po’s handwriting. “What’s that?” I whisper. “It’s from my first lunch meeting with your Pó Po. After I paid, she wrote this down. I’ve kept it with me ever since, but her words didn’t fully sink in until you taught them to me,” he says. Bennett smiles and looks at the receipt thoughtfully before folding the rectangular slip of paper into a mini ice cream cone. He walks up to the front and drops the paper ice cream into the flames.
I’ve never felt more myself than when I’m with you. And life’s too short not to be with someone you feel most yourself with.”
For most of my life, I needed to be able to take charge. But, Olivia, you make me want to lose control, go with my gut, delete the spreadsheet, and take the risk.”
“I thought it could be nice to do our own joss paper burning,” I say, bringing out an envelope from under my side of the blanket. His eyebrows knit together in confusion. “Do you have more items to send to your Pó Po?” he asks. “For your mom,” I say, handing Bennett the envelope.
“I’d also like to add this, if that’s okay with you.” He takes the paper from me cautiously. “What’s this?” “It’s a letter to her, from me. I’d love for her to know how incredible her son is, and how proud she’d be of who you are.”
His face relaxes into a dimpled smile. “If I didn’t make it clear enough before, I love you.” A wide smile spreads across my face. “I love you, too.”
Maybe there is beauty in opening yourself up to the love you don’t expect and the traits that will keep you guessing. Because compatible or incompatible, we’re all just trying to love and be loved, however that might look.
My most recent lesson: love is mostly like the moon. Whereas the moon and all its phases are predictable, love is not. Where I once thought I could predict how my relationships would turn out, I now realize that was as foolish as trying to keep the tides from rising and falling. In the end, gravity always finds us, bringing us right back where we belong.
