For Eric’s birthday, I got us tickets to see Jay Shetty speak at the Beacon Theater. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Jay Shetty is a well-known author, speaker, podcaster and life coach. I refer to him as a “social media monk.” Eric doesn’t so much care for this title, as he takes the teachings of Jay Shetty very seriously, whereas I see him more as a zen but business savvy dude who says fun, catchy meme-worthy shit like this:

Eric discovered him on the Calm app, a guided meditation app he uses every night before bed. As a former monk, Jay has a lot of experience in calming the mind, and Eric has learned a lot from his teachings on self care, relationships, love, and life in general.

So we went to see him speak, which was cool (if not exactly what we anticipated– we were expecting a super-inspiring Ted Talk, we got….a sort of bizarre variety show?). But Jay closed the night with a really lovely guided meditation.

He asked the audience to close their eyes and think up a moment of profound love in our lives. Whatever popped into our minds at the mention of this term, “profound love,” was perfectly fine. My personal interpretation of this instruction was to conjure up my earliest memory of profound love, which for me, undeniably, takes place at my childhood sleepaway camp, Robindel.

I pictured me and my best camp friends, age 15, at “Sing”– one of the last nights of camp during our final summer as campers. It’s an incredibly emotional night. I thought about how we all held each other tightly and sobbed, knowing that our magical days at camp were coming to an end for good, but also feeling eternally grateful for having formed these sister-type friendships that we knew would last a lifetime (and thus far have!). I remember that as the first moment of ever feeling a palpable ache in my heart because I just loved these people so much, and cherished every moment I got to spend with them.

Later, in the car driving home, Eric asked me about my profound love moment.

Me: “Being with my camp friends on one of the last nights of camp.”

Eric: “Huh. Interesting.”

(silence)

Me: “Why, what was your profound love moment?”

Eric: “Watching you, my beautiful wife, dancing with our beautiful children in the kitchen, and thinking how grateful I am to have created this amazing family and life with you.”

“Oh.”

“Right, yes. Me too!”

“Anyway, happy birthday!!!!!”