That crazy thing called love.

It’s 10:15 a.m. I’m sitting on my bed editing Wilfried Decoo’s book on writing language-teaching textbooks while half listening to the conversations floating through my walls. “Em, where’s your purse?” My roommate Kate’s sister and brother-in-law spent the night en route to Disneyland, and the two of them are now in the kitchen and up and down the stairs gathering their belongings before heading to the airport.

Those words, “Em, where’s your purse?” communicated much to me, but mostly I got the feeling that this man is taking care of his wife. To most of you that makes sense and is an everyday phenomenon, but to me that is extraordinary. I’ve never been a part of that world, and to this day it’s hard for me to fathom a man loving me enough to help me gather my belongings. Why should he care? Because I am important to him and it makes him happy to take care of me? Because he loves me? Or maybe, he doesn’t want to be late to the airport and is hurrying me along. Okay, that sounds more realistic to me. I just can’t comprehend the whole love thing, but it sounds really, really nice.