Twists in Perspective

Another spoiler-free, you-don’t-have-to-read-the-book-to-understand-this, Blue Ticket quote.

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On page 220, the narrator meets a white ticket woman (Valerie), and the exchange draws a parallel between how infertile women may see fertile women, and how mothers may see women without children.

She writes: “We tried to explain to Valerie that we were intrinsically wary because she had been found worthy all those years ago where we were somehow lacking.”

That was, for me, the feeling that separated me from women who were fertile. I was “intrinsically wary” because they could do what I couldn’t do. The book contains a system of judgment, but even without that in the real world, it feels like the universe stated what it thought of me.

Valerie responds:

I don’t see it like that, she said. If anything, I’m the one found lacking. All my life I’ve been told I can only be complete if I grow something inside of me and bring it into the world. Whereas you are whole and perfect as you are.

I loved that twist in perspective; the white ticket woman stating that she didn’t want her identity wrapped up in motherhood. She wanted to be enough on her own—a complete person—with or without a child.

I loved hearing both sides speaking to one another; unpacking everything they had been carrying in their heart.