Do We All Change Against Our Will?
No spoilers. I promise.
The librarian and I both stared at the slim book. “It’s much shorter than I imagined,” I admitted, fanning through the pages of Ira Levin’s Stepford Wives.
“Me too,” the librarian agreed. “I thought it was longer.”
It’s the sort of book that you can finish in one sitting, and you probably will because it demands that you devour it. I’m not really a reading-while-cooking kind of woman, but I stirred the risotto while turning the pages. I was really blown away by the story.
Without ruining the ending (I promise!), part of the horror for the book is the fear of your personality changing against your will. Joanna, the main character, is a photographer who fears she’ll change and become like the other women in the town who eschew their own interests in favour of supporting their husbands, raising their children, and cleaning their homes. She’s a feminist, not a likely candidate for giving up her own beliefs or activities, but that’s the point: She believes the personality changes are outside the women’s control.
Discussing feminism and control will ruin the incredible ending (how did I not know the ending despite the term “Stepford wife” being part of the everyday lexicon?), so I don’t want to go there. But the middle of the book: that idea that we can be changed against our will and how scary that is, made me think about… what else…
Infertility.
I’m not the woman I was before I started trying to conceive. I don’t know how you can go through infertility or loss and still be the same person you were before you started family building. I changed against my will; I don’t want to be the woman who avoids pregnant bellies and newborn babies. But that’s who I am.
I’ve become someone I’m not, except, well… I am, so this Melissa is someone I am. If you had told hopeful, excited 28-year-old Melissa that she would someday be this way, she would have never believed you because personalities don’t do a 180. Except they do sometimes because life changes you. Big events change you. I am who I am right now, though I may not always be this way. If I changed this drastically once, I could change drastically again and return to being a baby-loving, onesie-cooing person.
Part of me wondered about that idea of change as a horror technique when we do all have the potential to have our greatest wish become our greatest sadness. To lose part of how we define ourselves. But maybe that is why it’s so scary. Because we feel like we lose ourselves when life changes us. I liked 28-year-old Melissa. I liked her hope and excitement, and I wish she could still muster those feelings when it comes to babies. But if it wasn’t my love of babies, maybe it would have been my belief in the power of love or my happiness about marriage or my feelings about parenting or writing or publishing or reading. I’ve gotten to keep those things.
Life transforms everyone.
I was listening to Serial, and one of the people they interviewed for this season admitted that he isn’t sorry for things he’s done because he did them. Feeling sorry means applying who he is now to who he was then, and that’s not helpful because he can’t go back and change himself any more than we can stop ourselves from changing in the future. He states that it doesn’t come down to right or wrong; just done or not done.
Maybe it’s easier to not fear change when you like the direction you’ve moved; to chalk up then and now simply to then and now because you’re in a better place. But I think it’s more peeling back the horror of change and understanding that it will happen, even if we fight hard against it.
Time is a monster, changing us all.
8 comments
Ha I’ve never read it but I saw the cheesy 1970s movie decades ago.
I don’t feel so much infertility has changed me personally but more that it has changed my persona. I skipped a grade in elementary school and went straight to grad school from college so I was always one of the youngest people in school. And then later in jobs.
Then I decided to go to law school in my mid-30s and while I was older I still wasn’t the oldest person there. There were a number of people in their 40s and 50s. And plenty in their 30s.
But then infertility happened and now I’m definitely an older mom. Most likely the oldest mom in my parenting classes and at preschool and now elementary school. Which is strange considering my previous persona. And depressing.
I am definitely not the same person as I was before my dad’s illness and death, before I experienced IF and loss, before so many other big life events that change you. I was definitely less outwardly emotional before kids, now I can’t even watch sappy commercials without being a blubbering mess. I NEVER would have cried in front of anyone before; now I have the ability to cry in front of everyone and anyone if triggered. My husband likes it and thinks it softened me, but I dislike it because I don’t feel like I can control it. Like a tear or two quickly turns into full on sobbing, and it’s not always appropriate and I hate feeling/showing vulnerability. I miss the overall happier person I was before my dad’s illness and death. I have never been able to get rid of the dark edges. And I definitely miss the days of thinking sex=pregnancy=baby. Overall I just miss the lightness I felt before all of that. The older I get the weightier everything seems.
I think we are all changed by what we experience in our lives. Sometimes for the better, sometimes not.
I think the main way in which infertility has changed me is that I am more compassionate. I had often seen the quotation “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle,” but it really hadn’t resonated with me until I went through infertility. (I guess I had been pretty fortunate in my life up until that time and had few serious struggles.)
(BTW, Working Mom of 2 should be friends because we’ve had some similar life experiences: I also skipped a grade in elementary school and went to law school at age 30.)
I don’t think you need to worry about spoilers on something that’s 40+ years old. 🙂
My aunt once told me that 28 was the best age.
Just wanted to say I’m so happy I’m not 16 anymore. Maybe late twenties is that age where you think you know what will happen in your life and you like it? And in your 30s you discover that life happens/happened while you had other plans?
hugs, monster or not.
I saw “Wild” a couple of days ago, which lead me to an article by Cheryl Strayed that has been on my mind the past few days (https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/321/the-love-of-my-life). The end paragraphs in particular. This idea of unwillingly changing fits in with it and the grief we go through upon realizing the change and what was lost. I honestly see it as a reason for the hoopla around life transitions as otherwise I’m beginning to think many people wouldn’t willingly take them on otherwise.
Life definitely transforms everyone.
Interesting. Yes, I think you can change “against your will,” but, I think you can also feel it when you are turning into something you don’t like. Well you can if you pay attention. It’s very important to pay attention to things that make you resentful in particular. And it’s not hard to notice that one because it’s a pretty powerful emotion. And then you can pay attention to things like pettiness, and lying. You can pay attention to when you feel weak. All that is useful information.
Sometimes people are so overwhelmed by tragedy and misfortune it’s hard to pay attention to any of these things. But in my experience there’s always something little you can start with.
Adding yet another to my library list, thanks to you.
“Time is a monster, changing us all.’ Maybe change is the monster. I’ll be sitting with this.