Loving, With All Your Might, What You Have

A great English thinker and theologian wrote one of my favorite lines:

“There is the great lesson of ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ that a thing must be loved before it is lovable.” — G.K. Chesterton

Tonight I’m sitting in my small, tidy apartment, mentally applying this logic to my humble, but very loved, belongings. There is so much room for improvement here, aesthetically and practically. I would love to have a fancy soap dispenser, for example, instead of the plastic Palmolive bottle leaning leaned against my Mr. Coffee. My appliances are a dated and a dingy cream color, not stainless steel (although, I admit, when and if I upgrade, I think I’ll miss my refrigerator magnets). My walls are scuffed, my floor slightly crooked, there is an organ-shaped knick in my countertop, and my ceiling indicates that I do not need to worry about Joe Biden’s tax plan.

And yet, I can’t help but love this 525 square feet of paradise. It’s mine. Each piece of artwork on my unfortunately-band-aid-colored wall holds significance. Each Thursday before Shabbat I sweep and scrub and vacuum. On Friday mornings I buy flowers and display them on the coffee table that once belonged to my grandparents. Most of the things I own have come from someone else, actually, but in that way I bring all of the homes I have loved into harmony. What’s mine is only mine, of course, thanks to all of the people who have come before me, whose lives had to be lived for mine to be possible.

I buy off-brand paper towels, the sheets on my bed are frayed and faded, my sink is rusting, and at this moment for all the world, I would not change a single thing. This is not an homage to penury or asceticism. Rather, this is my recognition that all things loved are valuable, and that in loving, there is real joy.

I have two baking trays. They both belonged to my grandmother and are both scarred and stained with decades of grime. I’m sure I’ll replace them in the future. I’ll move to a new home, maybe make more money than I make now, maybe have more free time and bake more cookies, maybe marry and register for a magazine kitchen’s worth of cookware. I hope, should any of these possibilities realize, I’ll feel as unshakably grateful as I do now.

Nothing on earth is owed to us, for everything under heaven is G-d’s. That’s something I believe, but you don’t have to agree with me to know the splendid, exhilarating, praiseful feeling of loving what you have. Of acknowledging — whether I found this, earned this, was gifted this, stumbled upon this, fought for this with my knuckles bruised and bleeding, or wept and prayed and hoped for this — it’s mine, and oh, my G-d, what a joy it is to have something of your own.

Madeleine is a graduate student of Marriage and Family Therapy in Atlanta, Georgia. She has a black cat, writes a lot of poetry, and has a show-tune for absolutely every occasion. Read more from her word-loving brain here.