Torn between two men, Sarah's defining question in Richard Russo's Book of Sighs is: is it better to love or be loved? I can tell you this is her defining question, not because I'm indulging in insightful literary analysis these days, but because somewhere in the second half of the 500 plus pages, she asks herself this question.  Romantic that I am, when I read her question, I stopped, and pondered. Is it better to be love or be loved? Thinking about my own love history, first I decided to be loved was better, then I decided to love was better, then I decided I would want both. This led me to consider my teenage son and the decisions he will make about love. What if he came upon that same dilemma and turned to me for guidance? What would my answer be? And then I knew.

If one has to ponder whether one is more loved by a partner or whether a partner is the one more loved, maybe it's better to just move on. With "true love," or at least as close as I think we come, I think there is no answer to that question. And there doesn't need to be. You both are loving the other more than you could imagine the other one could love you, and that makes both of you the ones being loved, completely.

If Sarah was askin' that question, I think she hadn't found it...