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I am almost done with these posts about Matthew Quick’s book, Every Exquisite Thing.  You don’t have to read the book to follow these posts and have an opinion because I’m using the book as a springboard to other mental spaces.  If you want to read the other posts I’ve written about this book, you can find them here, here, here, here, here, and here.

It’s sometimes hard to know what YOU want and what you think you want.  Or what you think you should want so you try to make yourself want it.  I think everyone who gets a surprise diagnosis of infertility goes through at least a few minutes (some people marinate a lot longer) asking themselves if they really want to be a parent or whether they’re doing it because they think they should be doing it.  If you’re about to go above and beyond usual family building protocols, you’re going to do a gut check.

(Personally, I think even if a person doesn’t experience infertility, it behooves them to really sit with the decision for a while before committing to an answer.)

But it’s hard to know.  You think you know, but do you really know?  The same with college and marriage and every big life commitment; are you doing it because you get a sense it’s what is supposed to happen next, or are you willing it to happen because you love the idea?

Nanette struggles with this in the book.  In a conversation with her therapist, June, on page 172, she learns what every adult knows: that your first goals are rarely your last goals, and sometimes we don’t realize what interests us or who interests us until we’ve gone down a lot of dead-end streets.

When she’s asked what keeps her going (in other words, what she loves), June volunteers that she loves ice cream and the idea of going to Japan.  Those are the things that keep her going.

Nanette doesn’t know what she wants or loves, so she remains quiet.

June says, “I didn’t know I wanted to go to Japan when I was your age. I didn’t know I wanted to be a therapist, either. I thought I was going to be a surgeon, mostly because my father was a surgeon. You pick up goals and hopes along the way. Don’t worry, there are more in your future. You’ll see. And you will change. Change can be good. Caterpillar to butterfly.”

Later on page 254, Nanette asks:

“But how do I move forward? I have no idea!”

“Sometimes you just have to pick a direction and make mistakes. Then you use what you learn from your failure to pick new, better directions so you can make more mistakes and keep learning.”

It’s so simple. And yet it’s so scary. You’re only on earth for a short period of time. You don’t want to mess it up.

What did you think you wanted to do when you were younger?  I thought I wanted to go to Oberlin and become an oncologist.  Life turned out a little differently, which upon reflection, was a good thing.

Last weekend, we took a day trip to the beach.  Our normal beach is too far away for a day trip, so we opted for a closer beach.

The closer beach isn’t ideal.  It has a lot of bars and a younger crowd.  The beach is smaller, so people sit closer together.  It feels a little chaotic when you’re there on-season, though that feeling dissipates during the off-season.  Still, it’s a beach.  It’s in driving distance.  All I wanted was a place to plop down with a book for a few hours and eat greasy Thrasher’s fries.

With the sound of the ocean.

That last part is important because all the other things could take place anywhere else.  I could read anywhere else and French fries are easy to come by in this country.  But I wanted to be by the water.  Other people wanted to be by the water, too.  The only difference was that they wanted to listen to their music through enormous speakers.

Imagine a person sitting down next to you with a guitar amp.  A big, black box that is about the size of a small file cabinet.  The person begins playing their music.  Loudly.  It’s not terrible music, but it completely blots out all the other sounds around you.  Like the ocean.  You move.  Another person settles down next to you with another amp.  Frat boys.  Techno music.  You move.  And you move again.  And you move again.  And finally you decide that you’re not having fun.

I’m not bothered by talking around me.  I’m in a public space, and there isn’t another option for having a conversation.  I’m not bothered by people playing a game next to me.  If they want to play a game or build a sandcastle, it means they’re going to run around next to me.  But I’m annoyed about the music thing because there IS another way to listen to music.  With headphones.  There is an option that impacts no one around the person, but they’re not taking it.

The worst, the absolutely worst, are the people who turn on their music AND LEAVE.  They go take a walk.  So we all have to endure their music and they’re not even there, enduring their music.

I am getting really cranky in my old age.

*******

I love quiet.  I love driving in silence.  I love sitting in silence for hours.  I recently read about a sound-absorbing art exhibit.  I would love that art exhibit.  Similarly, I think I would enjoy being inside Microsoft’s silent chamber.  Did I mention that I’m a fan of quiet?  Love it.

I can’t think with music around.  I can’t read with music around.

We will go to our normal beach this summer, which can be noisy at times, but there are plenty of music-free stretches and empty beaches if a person wants to listen to the waves and not EDM.  There is quiet there, which is good for a sound-free lady like myself.

Do you like it quiet when you’re reading, or do you listen to music at the same time?

P.S. Please don’t bring speakers to the beach this summer.  Seriously.

Yes, another one about Matthew Quick’s book, Every Exquisite Thing.  You don’t have to read the book to follow these posts and have an opinion because I’m using the book as a springboard to other mental spaces.  If you want to read the other posts I’ve written about this book, you can find them here, here, here, here, and here.

Do you ever think about the longevity of a friendship in its starting point?  Last week, my friend came over for dinner.  I met her on the first day of college in my first class.  I knew immediately that we were going to be friends, but moreover, I suspected even in those first days that we were going to be lifelong friends.

Before you applaud my ability to predict friendship longevity, I also had that feeling with another woman and we’re not friends at all.

I guess the point is that I usually go into starting new friendships with the hope that it will continue indefinitely.  And then a quote on page 169 of the book gave me pause.  Nanette (the main character) is in a session with her therapist, June.

June brings up the expression “a reason, a season, or a lifetime” in their last therapy session before Christmas, and Nanette says, “Booker quotes that in The Bubblegum Reaper. ‘People enter our lives for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.’”

“I know, but he didn’t coin the phrase. It’s a cliché,” June says. “And sayings become clichés mostly because they are true. People tend to repeat what they feel is real—authentic.”

First of all, I’ve never heard that phrase before: a reason, a season, or a lifetime.  Second of all, it made me wonder if we’re all seeking lifetime friendships but being okay (mostly) when they fall short.  Does anyone aim for a reason or a season friendship?  I mean, yes, we all understand that we sometimes meet someone for a reason (infertility) or a season (college), but is anyone aiming to just keep reason or season friendships contained in their moment and then move away?

I ask because what if I’m only seeking lifetime friendships but someone else is only seeking seasonal friendships?  How do we mesh?  Who bends to the other person’s timeline?

Or do we not know the outcome of friendship until we know the outcome of friendship?  Are all feelings of lifelongness just feelings until they’re truths?  Or does feeling it make lifelong friendships happen because we strive to keep the friendships we suspect have longevity?

Friendship.  Discuss.

Modern Mrs. Darcy has a fun post about making a to-do list for your to-do list, and I want to echo that I do this everyday.

My bullet journal is not realistic.  It contains everything that needs to get done; some of it immediately though some of it can wait a day or two.  (And then, separately, there is a monthly long-term project section.)

Looking at the list makes me anxious.

So before I close down for the night, I make two post-it notes and stick one on the front of my work bullet journal and the other on the front of my personal bullet journal.  (Yes, I keep two separate bullet journals.)  The work one contains meeting reminders and tasks that must be finished before the end of the day.  The personal one just contains things like “cook dinner” or “write blog post” or “clean Linus’s cage.”

That way I’m ready to go first thing in the morning.  I know before I go to bed what needs to get done.  And I cross off all the must-do tasks and sometimes a don’t-put-this-off-for-too-long task.

Then the whole thing starts over again.  Anything undone is transferred to the next post-it note, and all the new stuff is listed.

Looking at the whole to-do list is overwhelming and it’s hard to know what to do first.  So choosing three or four things that must get done while I’m feeling calm and ready to relax means that those three or four things will get done, even if everything else remains on the to-do list another day.

Ta-da!

I like to imagine that when the librarians take a coffee break, they sit around a table in the backroom saying things like, “That Melissa is a great library user” or “Thanks, I will have a doughnut, and can you believe how reliable Melissa is with library books?”

Maybe they whisper it so the other patrons don’t get jealous if their voices travel out of the room, or maybe the librarians get together at night and dance joyously around the stacks with flowers woven in their hair, chanting, “Mel, Mel, book borrower Mel.”

Lest you think I’m exaggerating, I have actual PROOF of my trustworthiness.

I went to check out a book at the library self-service machine — actually three books because I had the twins’ stuff in my stack — and the machine wouldn’t register the third book.  So I brought it up to the desk, and the new librarian couldn’t get the computer to recognize the bar code, either.  She turned to the other, longtime librarian and asked what she should do.

The longtime librarian looked me up and down (actually, I was standing against the desk, so she only looked from a little below my chest to the top of my head and back down to a little below my chest) and then she gave a nod.  “Just give it to her.  She’s responsible.  She’ll bring it back in three weeks.”  And then, directly to me, “I’m trusting you.”

DID YOU HEAR THAT?  She is trusting me.  That means I am trustworthy.

When I was growing up, my mother told me that all a person has is their reputation.  She may have been talking about S-E-X, but I like to think that she was also talking about good library habits.  Guess what, mum, I have a good library reputation and an uncheckedout book to prove it.