I can’t be the only parent who lives in dread of playing favorites. Especially of having a “favorite child.” The online “soundtrack” of parenting reflections has presented me more than once with the theory that you butt heads with the child who resembles you most. But I think this is only true for certain personality…
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Love Speaks The Truth (a No Easy Answers post)
It seems to me that people come to blogs looking for one of three things: answers, inspiration, or solidarity. I have my moments for providing answers–at least, as they have revealed themselves in my life–and inspiration. But the truth is that I often wrestle with questions that have no easy answers. This is my place…
Read MoreOrdinary Love
I am hopeless romantic at heart–a sucker for a great kiss in a movie or a book, hopelessly sentimental about stories where new love is found alongside other adventures. But I’m also becoming ever more aware of how easy it is to take an oversimplified, overdramatized, and romanticized view of love and trying to measure…
Read MoreTrue Love Looks Like…
True love looks like deciding together not to bother with cards for Valentine’s Day, since we always forget anyway. True love looks like arguing over college funding, ten years in advance. True love looks like straightening the living room before piano students arrive. True love looks like crying in each other’s arms at the words…
Read MoreHow To Fight
If my husband is upset, he cannot eat. But he can always, always sleep. If I am upset, I can always eat. But I cannot sleep. Therein lies the challenge for us in conflict resolution. Before we got married we were required to attend Engaged Encounter. One of the resource couples that weekend laid out…
Read MoreMarriage Has Made Me Free
The other day, Christian looked up from Discover magazine and chuckled. “Guess what?” he said. “73% of Discover readers think humans are meant to be polyamorous.” I confess: I rolled my eyes. Monogamy can be a challenge, I’ll grant you, but the alternative causes such pain and dysfunction, so much emotional scarring for the adults…
Read MoreSex, Love, and Women’s Fiction
I’ve been reading a lot of women’s fiction lately, and reading it with a more critical eye than is usual for me. As I contemplate the novel query stage, I’m analyzing how my book fits into what’s already out there. There’s a lot of really good writing out there: great character depth and engrossing storytelling.…
Read MoreIn Awkwardness, Escape
Twenty years later, I still cringe at the memory. Oh, let’s call a spade a spade: it’s memories. I was then as I am now, a hopeless romantic. Only as a sixteen-year-old who’s lived a blessedly sheltered life, I was perhaps a little less prepared for a little thing called “reality.” (If, by “little,” you…
Read MoreTwenty-Seven Days
If you knew you only had twenty-seven days, how would you live life differently? I spoke recently to a friend whose daughter gave birth to a child they knew was not going to live. Indeed, it was a miracle that the child was not stillborn. “People tiptoe around us,” she said. “They’re afraid to ask.…
Read MoreConfessions of a Wistful Romantic
I dreamed I kissed a man who was not my husband. It was one of those dreamy, romantic, revelatory kisses that squeezes your chest and leaves you breathless. It was amazing…and then horrifying. How could I face the man to whom I had promised forever? Did I really have to tell him? After all, there…
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Kathleen M. Basi 