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“So what have you learned about love?” people often ask when they find out I’m an editor of Modern Love.
“Oh, you know,” I say, “a lot.” Or, “Most clichés are accurate.” Or I delay, promising, “I’ll tell you later.”
In case we don’t meet again, I’ll tell you now: After 10 years of participating in this unique and precious work alongside my thoughtful boss, Daniel Jones, I’ve learned that love is like a form of energy — sustenance as integral to our existence as food, sunshine and the air we breathe.
And I believe love, like energy, is indestructible, constantly transferred between people, passed down from one generation to the next, durable through time and even death.
Joan Didion was correct when she wrote: “Life changes fast. Life changes in an instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.” Spend two minutes in the Modern Love submission inbox, and you will appreciate life’s fragility. Loved ones suddenly dying or becoming sick; deciding post-affair that they’re done with a two-decade marriage and don’t want custody of the kids; or revealing a family secret that upends everything.
Just as common, however, are happy happenstances. Falling in love with a man who grew up on the same block as you and worked in the same building, but whom you didn’t meet until a chance midlife encounter. Talking to a stranger on the train who provides sage, unsolicited advice. Or witnessing a hawk — the likes of which you’ve never seen in your neighborhood — swoop down the day you and your wife visit the man who received your late daughter’s organs.