Sometimes all it takes is one line.

I would not call myself an avid or voracious reader. It usually takes me a while to get through a book. My reading style is slow and methodical. The downside to this fact is that I don't read all that many books. The upside is that I usually clearly remember the ones I do read.

And I don't just remember the gist. Often, there is a line or two somewhere in a book that really sticks with me. Sometimes the lines are crucial to the story, sometimes not. But because I read every word so carefully, I always notice when there's a line that echoes with meaning in my real life.

I've thought for some time about recording these lines somewhere. Today, when I came across such a line in my latest book, I thought that maybe writing about these lines would make an interesting blog theme. So, tonight is the first attempt at making the idea work. Hopefully this produces an interesting record of both the books I read and various other aspects of my life that I think about as I read.

Right now I am reading a book called Labyrinth by Kate Mosse. It's a historical fiction novel involving archeological digs, past lives, and secret caves, but the details of the book are not particularly important to understanding my reaction to this line:

"Many nights in the early days of their marriage, watching her as she slept in the quiet of their chamber, he understood he was -- he could be -- a better man because he was loved by her."

That line brought a tide of bittersweet memories back to me. It's not so different from something I said to a friend several years ago, in a letter that laid my soul out on the table.

It's an old story, I suppose. Girl meets boy. Girl likes boy. Girl eventually falls desperately in love with boy. Boy does not love girl back. Girl can't let go.

I look back at the time I spent in love with this guy who did not love me back, and I wonder what I was thinking at the time. What did I think was going to happen? Was it that I thought he was going to change his mind? That he was lying to himself? That eventually he would realize that I was it?

While I don't doubt that these are some of the things I told myself, I don't think I really believed any of it. Hoped, perhaps. Yes, I hoped that he would change his mind. I hoped he would choose to love me instead of remaining so staunch in his belief that he didn't and couldn't ever feel that way about me. I had a hard time with that, because I don't believe that love is some predetermined, star-crossed thing. I don't believe that soul mates exist. Lasting relationships exist not between people predestined to love each other, but between people who have the courage to choose to love each other.

But even though I hoped that this guy would change his mind and choose to love me, I also saw the inherent catch-22: if I really believed love was a choice, I could also choose to stop loving him. It wouldn't happen overnight, and it would hurt, but I could do it.

So why didn't I? Why didn't I cut ties and move on? Why didn't I give myself the chance to meet someone else and fall in love again? While foolish hope was a part of it, I don't think that was the whole story. I never did quite put my finger on it, though.

When I read the line above, I was reminded of a hard day at the end of my time with this guy. Finally, the day when we would go our separate ways was coming. Time was forcing me to choose to stop loving him, even if I still did not want to. I struggled to know how to walk away without regret. I did not want to leave anything unsaid. So, I wrote a letter, and I poured the contents of my soul onto the page. By then I had come to terms with the idea that nothing was ever going to happen between us, but at least I would know that it wasn't because he didn't know how I felt.

Here's a testament to the way that the six years since I wrote that letter have changed me: I don't remember much of what I said. It was my whole life at the time, and now I can't remember it. Except for the last line.

I had come to the end, and I stared at the computer screen, wondering what could possible finish a letter like this. But my fingers began to move and this is what came out:

"I am a better person for having loved you. You are my northern star."

Though I didn't understand this at the time, as I was thinking about it today, I realized that this is the reason I spent three years choosing to continue to love him. Loving him made me a better person. My relationship with him, however one-sided, made me see the world differently and made me see myself differently, in ways that I liked. And that is why, to this day, I don't regret any of the time I spent loving him.

But that's not quite what the book quote says, is it? The character does not say that he is a better person for loving. He says he is a better person for being loved.

So do I believe that I made this guy a better person by loving him? Truthfully, I have no idea. When I was in the throes of this, it was all I could do not to collapse under the power and pain of my own emotions. I didn't spare any time or energy in thinking about what it must have been like for him, knowing that a person he considered to be among his dearest friends was desperately in love with him, and believing that he could not love her back.

As I think of this, there is a piece of me that still feels no sympathy. There's a piece of me that still twitches with frustration and anger at him for choosing not to love me. For refusing to love me.

But it couldn't have been easy for him, either. And even though I believe he could have made a different choice, there are two other things I also believe. First, that he didn't believe (and still doesn't believe) that he was in control of those feelings. And second, that he could have chosen to cut me out of his life when things got complicated. And he didn't.

So was he a better person for being loved by me? I still can't say for sure. But I do know that my loving him put him in some very difficult situations, and despite that, he clung for dear life to a friendship that would have been very easy to push out of his life. And that even though things are different now, it's a friendship that still carries on. It's a friendship that has taught us both a lot.

It's been a long time since I have thought about these tumultuous memories. For years, I have understood that it is better that we never ended up together. We see the world in very different ways these days, not to mention being happily settled in different parts of the country.

But I like to believe we are both better people -- me for having loved, and him for having been loved.

"... he was -- he could be -- a better man because he was loved by her."

I don't believe that we are necessarily better people simply by virtue of being loved, but perhaps we all can be -- if we choose to be.