Love | Bethany Bassett

Tag: Love

What the World Needs Now…

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 3 Comments

Where to begin.

I’m sure you all have seen the YouTube videos where the frizzy-haired woman in a McCain t-shirt yammers wildly about how Obama is an ARAB! And a MUSLIM! And a SOCIALIST! And BLACK! And an ANTI-AMERICAN TERRORIST! I have to turn those videos off after about five seconds or I get hives.

Well, it has recently come to my attention that some of my relatives are saying things about Obama that make terrorist rantings sound like compliments. They believe with all their hearts that Barack Obama:
–          Is the potential antichrist
–          Will incite “riots, terrorism, and chaos”
–          Is using “forces of darkness” to become president
–          Is being supported by a personal genie
–          Plans to overthrow Kenya
–          Is hypnotizing voters
–          Wants to kill all our babies
–          Is a “warlock”
–          Utilizes the spirit of a python to “constrict” our finances and health
–          Campaigns against McCain and Palin through “chanting, praying to the constellation, theosophy, theomancy, white magic, candle magic, water witching, tribalism, meditation, astral projection, human sacrifices, water spirits, territorial witchcraft, and radical Islamic hatred”

I feel poisoned every time I read their list—an inky black sickness that won’t rub off—and I find myself in the impossible dilemma of wanting to make a stand against hatred while realizing that willful ignorance doesn’t listen. Damn, that sounds preachy. But how do you convince someone that his or her beliefs, no matter how outrageous or unfounded, are wrong? Horribly, hurtfully wrong?

Many Christians I know have aligned themselves with the Republican party without regard to the candidates or the platforms just because Christian = Republican, duh. And they haven’t just aligned themselves; they’ve lashed themselves to the mast with a thick rope and forty-two sailor knots. They approach politics with a religious fervor that easily lends itself to hatred, and rather than look up Obama’s religious background (devoted Christian), they invent one for him (radical Islamic terrorist). They spread nasty rumors and hold prayer meetings to literally curse the Democrats. And they have the audacity to think God is cheering them on.

Last time I checked my Bible, God was love. Not hate. Numerous verses warn against slander, gossip, malice, stirring up dissension, and defaming one’s neighbor, and in his most famous sermon, Jesus told us to bless and not curse. I honestly don’t care if my relatives want to vote for McCain—they have that right, and it in no way indicates they are stupid. But I do strongly care that they not spread outlandish and blatantly un-Christian lies in the name of God about the man I voted to lead our country.

Party politics aside, hatred is never the answer. Never. And I hope that the people I know and love can find the strength of character to rise above ignorance and find the kindness this world so desperately needs.

10Oct

Dear Crush

Posted by: Bethany in Marriage Letters, Uncategorized 5 Comments

Dear crush,

Perhaps it’s because I never know what to expect when you invite me on a date. You’ve taken me to IMAX and waterfalls, Alligator Alley and concerts, ski slopes and dinner, and you never let on what we’re doing until the last possible moment. (I never catch on either, thanks to my gullibility trusting nature and disinclination toward geography.) Last Monday’s date night involved aperitivi in a little downtown bar and then the impossible—“The Dark Knight,” in English, in a large-screen theater. With box seats. You realize I can die a happy woman now, right?

Perhaps it’s because the next morning, while I was burrowed under the covers effectively not helping you get the girls dressed, you were making me a picture-perfect cappuccino… which you then brought to me in bed. I fully commend you for rising to the challenge and finding a way to wake me without incurring any wrath whatsoever. In fact, I can’t think of a lovelier start to a day than coffee with a heaping spoonful of lovin’.

Perhaps it’s because you suspected one day last week had been a little gloomy and brought me home a pot of cheery orange! flowers wrapped in a cheery orange! bow. Of all the people in the world, including myself, you know best how I tick. Perhaps it’s because, even though we’re leaning slightly in different directions about the presidential election, we can still die laughing together at SNL’s political sketches. I’m so glad to share my weird particular sense of humor with you. Perhaps it’s because you encourage me relentlessly until I go completely sane and have a fabulous day.

Perhaps all of the above are why I find myself loving you a smidgen or two. You never know.

XOXO,

Your secret admirer

7Jul

Ain’t Nothin’ Better

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 5 Comments

In honor of our fifth wedding anniversary, which slipped away on a cloud of jet lag Saturday, here are five of my favorite things about being married:
– Never having to say goodnight
– Falling asleep locked together like puzzle pieces
– Hugging in the middle of an argument
– Cracking up over years of inside jokes
– [Censored for your protection… hehe]

If jet lag weren’t STILL kicking my rear, I would write about how each year together is immeasurably better than the one before… how familiarity only breeds contempt if you forget to make out regularly… how I kind of hate Shania Twain, but I can’t help singing “Ain’t nothin’ better, we beat the odds together,” at least until Dan begs me on behalf of everything sacred in this world to stop… but I’m out of eloquence at the moment, so I’ll keep this simple: Here’s to the wild, wonderful adventure of spending life with the one you love best.

22May

Bibbidee-Bobbidee-Boo

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 6 Comments

On Tuesday night, Dan and I went on a double date with our friends Tom and Lindsey to a magical little agriturismo tucked away in the Umbrian hills. As with most meals here, the combination of gorgeous food and wine led to the kind of eager, overlapping conversation that Italians are famous for. And somewhere between the Sagrantino gnocchi and the profiterole, I found myself telling our love story—the well-worn details of meeting and connecting and promising.

It struck me later, as we walked through herb gardens back to the car, that this was the first time I had recounted our romantic history without feeling defensive. See, Dan and I got engaged only two months into dating, and I often felt like I had to justify our relationship to others, lay it out in neat mathematical terms so they would approve. It wasn’t easy. We went to a small Christian university where students were concerned with finding the Right Person to marry. Ironically, the divorce rate among our former classmates is higher than average, but I suppose it makes sense—a lot of Mr. and Mrs. Perfects showed themselves to be less-than-perfect after the wedding, and oops! Destiny must have loaded the wrong program. Ctrl + Alt + Delete, UndoMarriage, Restart.

I wish someone—maybe Dr. Phil?—would have sat the lot of us confused college students down and said, “Listen. Life is not a fairytale. There is not one custom-made person floating around somewhere in the world with your future happiness in his hands. Prince Charming? Is gay. So stop worrying about perfection and marry someone who helps you bloom into a better, brighter self. Choose someone you can laugh with and cry with and charge into the future with, and then be prepared to work hard for your relationship ‘til death do you part.”

I never knew what people meant when they told me, “You’ll know which one is The One.” No divine decree conked me on the head when I met Dan, and I often doubted our relationship simply because no fairy godmother was singing “bibbidee-bobbidee-boo” at us. However, I adored him. We could walk comfortably through each other’s minds, and our personalities clicked from the start. More than all, we wanted the same things in life, and our future together shone with delighted promise. I hated having to explain our relationship to cynical friends. They were looking for complicated magic—a mile-long wish list being checked off by one person—whereas what we had was simple: We loved each other, and we were willing to put our lives’ efforts into caring for that love.

I don’t often blog about marriage because I feel like there are fine lines between the honest and the pretentious (“We have it all figured out”), the sugar-coated (“Our marriage is a 24-7 makeoutfest!”), and the complaining (“My husband is a horrible person who would rather see me writhe in agony than put his dirty socks in the laundry basket”*). And while parenting is often a one-sided struggle, marriage is a very intimate haven requiring respect and discretion. Not open for public viewing

At the same time, I’m always encouraged to hear about other couples learning how to love each other through life’s inevitable storms and whirlpools and doldrums. Also, I can’t help wondering if there’s some other woman out there wondering if she’s chosen the right husband, terrified that any argument could lead to divorce. So this is what (nearly) five years of marriage have taught me:

Making time to talk about little things is hard.

Making time to talk about big things is harder.

Making time (and finding courage) to talk about the huge and ugly things, the ones you really don’t want to bring up, the ones that make you scared or weepy or furious, is incredibly hard,

BUT

Those conversations are the ones that propel a relationship forward, and if you can get yourself to say the unsayable, to work slowly and painfully through problems together, and maybe even to hug in the middle of a fight, you’ll delve deeper into the kind of love that far transcends checklists and fairy godmothers.

—

* For the record, my husband always puts his socks in the laundry, no writhing required. I like him, yes I do.

8Apr

Mortification Monday, Ch. 5

Posted by: Bethany in Mortification Mondays 6 Comments

Mortification Monday, v. 1.0 (Disclaimers here)
Chapter 5: Not Your Typical Crush

Sometimes, a Monday just falls on the wrong day. Between a caffeine-fueled cleaning blitz (Lavazza coffee: Different kind of bean, different kind of gas!) and the subsequent mental crash, the author loses her funny. And perhaps her three-year-old coerces her into spending the morning “fishing” with a plastic straw, which is THE MOST BORING of all boring games in existence. Yes, even more than The Quiet Game, which was invented for the purpose of torturing prisoners of war with EXTREME BOREDOM. Anyway, things start going awry, and then haywire, and then dropped dishes/hunger-striking baby/stubbed toe disastrous. And then, because she is not thinking straight, the author looks online for a new swimsuit and subsequently changes her name to Flabby McBlimple. And by the time she opens her old diary to share it with the Internet, she is so overwhelmed by the patheticness and irresponsible use of underlining therein that she gives up on life and goes back to fishing.

So you see, sometimes, Mortification Monday has reason to fall on a Tuesday. You are kindly asked to get over it.

::Clears throat::

When we last peeked into preteen Bethany’s diary, there was mention of liking Igor and unholy amounts some underlines. That pretty much brings us up to date:

Tuesday, February 25^th (Age 12)
“You know how in most crushes you usually don’t look at the guy you like, you usually don’t talk to eachother₁, and you probably only see him once or twice a week or₂ month?₃ With Igor and I, we talk all the time, look in eachother’s eyes, (he has hazel-blue eyes just like mine) and see eachother₄ quite a bit (not by ourselves, obviously₅). Today when he got a haircut that I didn’t like a lot, that didn’t change anything. He’s still the same guy, ugly or cute.₆ I’ve made a list of character qualities in a guy, and he gets 22 out of the 26, and the other 4, I’m not sure of.₇”

₁ In elementary school, I spent long portions of every day doing grammar exercises and practicing penmanship like a good little Colonial girl (I also knew how to cross-stitch, evade the Tories, and throw tea into harbors, but that is beside the point). I only started to love the English language, however, during my rebellious stage when I looked up bad words in the Dictionary (I also started listening to Oldies AND wearing tank-tops in secret… shock! Though this, too, is beside the point). I started to love English even more a couple of years later when I fell head-over-heels for a boy who said things like “nary” and “hoary debacle” in an excruciatingly charming way (“Cogsarned!” “Tickles my lollies!” “Homoerotic binge with Yoga!” Swoon, I know. Yet still beside the point). I enjoyed tutoring writing classes in college so much that I married a tutoree, and my creative writing class was basically chocolate-flavored crack, and sometime in there, I decided I might as well get my degree in the field I love (as opposed to elementary education, which gave me seizures, or psychology, which made me neurotic and has nothing to do with the point). The Point is that I eventually learned “eachother” is actually two words. Glad we cleared that up.

₂ Remember last time? When I promised this entry would have absolutely no underlines whatsoever? And through my clever lie got you to come back this week? And you’re still reading even though there is, in fact, an underline? HA.

₃ Quick poll: Do you ever look at the guy you like? Do you ever speak to him? Do you see him more than twice a month? No? Well, congratulations! You have a Typical Crush™! If you’re interested in progressing to the next level, that being Social Contact™, you may want to try incessantly stalking him until he asks why you’re hiding in his shoe rack again. Casually mentioning his Social Security number is a good way to break the ice.

₄ TWO words. Just a friendly reminder to diary-prone preteens everywhere. (Also two words: “All right,” “this morning,” and “anal retentive.”)

₅ Obviously. Because unsupervised Social Contact™ could lead to other vices such as playing footsie, listening to rock music, and me stealing his pencil because it smelled like his delicious, clean, guy smell. Not that any of those things ended up happening, of course…

₆ I was quite the saint in those days. First, I was not angry when the love of my life put his arm around me. Then, I was not offended when we got to play a pretend couple. Finally, I continued to feel twitterpated EVEN THOUGH Igor’s hair was temporarily on the short side. Folks, this kind of selflessness is what relationships are all about.

₇ Regrettably, I do not have a copy of this list, but I can imagine some of the character qualities I found appealing:
+ Hazel-blue eyes
+ GOOD HAIRCUT (temporarily suspended from list)
+ Is really sweet
+ First name Igor
+ Last name Dreamboat
? Has already picked out my engagement ring

Next time on Mortification Monday: The saga of the unfortunate haircut continues!

31Mar

Mortification Monday, Ch. 4

Posted by: Bethany in Mortification Mondays 4 Comments

Mortification Monday, v. 1.0 (Disclaimers here)
Chapter 4: Underlining Love!!!

When we last left our protagonist, she was dealing with prophetic visions of marrying another man. Paisley ties were involved, and horrors abounded, horrible horrors of a genitalian nature. I know you all have been in suspense these last two weeks, wondering if Bethany’s fate is indeed sealed. Has Igor Dreamboat’s destiny as her husband been dashed upon the rocky shores of Southern Baptistism? (Deep breath now…)

Thursday, February 20^th ₁ (Age 12)
“Tonight was the [₂] play. I am [lead female character], and Igor was my husband again.₃ He has been each time for the 3 plays we’ve done so far. But I don’t really mind.₄ I’ve liked Igor ever since I first saw him, many years₅ ago. Mrs. Dreamboat has been desperately trying to make a match of us since she first saw me₆, and I’m sure that he likes me. He has said that he would pick me to marry out of the 12 girls in our class, and he acts like he likes me if putting his arm around me and looking straight into my eyes, and talking like he likes me,₇ means anything. It does to me. I really, really like him.₈ He’s really sweet.₉”

₁ Technical note: This journal entry was written exactly one (1) day after the nightmare entry. Apparently, since the nausea-inducing marriage did not, in fact, “come to pass” within 24 hours of my dream, I was in the clear. Or, there’s a remote possibility that I slightly exaggerated my panic of the previous day… Not that I am was ever dramatic or anything…

₂ Name of play deleted in order to yadayadayada, etc.

₃ Class, we call this “foreshadowing.” Also “literary irony.”

₄ Again with the saintly not-mindingness… Obviously, my passion ran deep.

₅ And–are you all taking notes?–we call this “hyperbole.”

₆ I was only five when she first saw me, and her enthusiastic praise of my good behavior MAY not have been a direct invitation to marry her son… but otherwise, this statement is the plain and unembellished truth.

₇ Guys, are you paying attention? Forget talking dirty. Talking like you like a girl is the most direct way to convey your love and secure a place in her ~~heart~~ diary. Spread the word!

₈ Really.

₉ Really.₁₀

₁₀ Listen up, class. Sometimes, underlining can be used to emphasize a word. We call this a “rhetorical device.” Other times, underlining can be used to emphasize the point that you are a twelve-year-old girl who needs a social life, a bigger chest, and a double dose of Valium ASAP.

Next time on Mortification Monday: I objectively psychoanalyze our relationship — without underlining a single word!

18Mar

Somebody Loved

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 4 Comments

“Now my feet turn the corner back home;
Sun turns the evening to rose;
Stars turning high up above;
You turn me into somebody loved.”
~ The Weepies

You,
With the impossibly tiny fingers curled up like primrose petals;
With pure baby laughter floating up from your heart in iridescent bubbles;
With your snackable cheeks and ticklish tummy and nose like a dab of frosting just begging to be kissed;

You,
With dancing beams of multi-colored energy;
With the daily explosions of learning, bursting out of your hands, mouth, eyes;
With your baby innocence, your little-girl mischievousness, and your big-girl loveliness peeking out all at once;

You,
With the eyes that send my stomach butterflies into delighted pirouettes;
With inexhaustible hope, optimism, and humor like prismatic wind chimes reflecting the sun;
With whole-heart hugs that engulf every unspoken emotion;

You turn me…

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