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.

Sorry, more Blue Ticket questions. I promise I’ll never post spoilers, and you don’t really need to read the book to have thoughts on these quotes.

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Some infertility has a known diagnosis. Some infertility falls into the unexplained. When infertility is a surprise—when you’ve gone through life thinking you would be able to procreate and then discover you can’t—there is a “why me” element to it.

I mean, the simple response is also “why not me?” No one deserves infertility. Like most things in life, it’s doled out randomly. Our uterus works or it doesn’t. It was a good egg or it wasn’t. The sperm found its way to the goal or it didn’t.

On page 185, the narrator lies in bed, thinking about her blue ticket diagnosis:

As I lay there I thought about what the lottery might have seen or not-seem inside me. What had been recorded and observed and commented upon for my whole life; the times I refused to play, or pulled someone’s hair, or buried dolls in the dirt.

In the book, you only have twelve or so years for the universe to determine whether you’re given a blue or white ticket. But infertility comes after twenty or thirty years of choices. It was very hard for me to not let my brain go to that place: Why was I being chosen for this? What had I done or not done that put me in this situation?

And if it’s this hard, why don’t I stop? Why don’t I accept it rather than fight against it?

A few pages later, on page 189, she answers that.

Because it seemed like everything was telling me it was the right thing to do. Every cell in my body … Having a child is both the most rational and irrational decision possible, in this world. This fucking awful, beautiful world, which I can’t stop loving, though I have considered it, I have evaluated and counted the ways.

The most rational and irrational decision to fight against those clear signs from your body and decide to forge ahead anyway, without knowing how it will turn out.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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At the beginning of the pandemic, I thought I’d make my way through all the unread books on my bookshelf. And I am reading them… sometimes… but, more often, I’m reading my way through new books borrowed digitally from the library.

At the beginning of the pandemic, I thought I could turn it into a project: read everything unread on the shelves. I tossed it out mentally in the same way that I tossed out things such as re-organizing the basement or finishing a major photo project. Things that I wanted to get done, and I now had time at home to get done.

But I haven’t done any of these things.

Instead, I’ve purchased books along the way, adding to the unread pile instead of subtracting.

Maybe I just need to admit that I’m not going to check anything off the list, project-wise.

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

Yet again, a thought that came up while reading Blue Ticket.

We are taught to be suspect of strangers, right? Don’t talk to strangers. Stranger Danger. But…

Babies are strangers. We don’t know them until we actually know them. But we’re not scared of them. I mean, we’re partly not scared because the most they can do is wail and maybe gum our arm. It’s hard to be scared of something that helpless. Yet… I’m terrified of crickets, so size and lack of danger isn’t really an argument.

On page 174, a character (let’s call her X) is speaking with another character (let’s call her Y). Both are pregnant.

Y asks, “Do you ever think what the baby will be like?” The conversation that follow:

I have no frame of reference, I said.

They are two strangers coming to meet us, she said. Are you ever afraid about that?

I am now, I said.

I picture them not as babies but as two tall, mysterious figures walking towards us from a moon-like landscape.

Isn’t it sort of odd with babies? I was scared of my own ability to take care of the twins. I was scared of my own ability to get through the day while keeping them nourished and stimulated and happy. But I was never scared of them, even though I’m terrified of many smaller things including snakes, mice, and bugs.

So why aren’t we scared of babies?

Did you know a full version of “A Little Bit Alexis” exists and you can buy it on iTunes? We discovered it around midnight this week when ChickieNob mused, “I wonder if they ever recorded the song for real.”

Do we currently own it? Yes.

Listen, things have been shitty, and if we can grab five minutes of happiness (I actually think the full song is closer to three minutes, but you get the point) for 99 cents, then it was money well spent.

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Stop procrastinating. Go make your backups. Don’t have regrets.

Seriously. Stop what you’re doing for a moment. It will take you fifteen minutes, tops. But you will have peace of mind for days and days. It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments in order to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• None… sniff.

Okay, now my choices this week.

No Kidding in NZ draws a line between feminism and childlessness. She points out: “Discrimination against us, as women without children or as mothers, is a form of misogyny. It does not see us as individuals, but as objects, and judges us by our biology, rather than by our personalities, our characteristics, our flaws and our talents.” She unpacks why sometimes women absorb that misogyny and how it comes out against other women. A fantastic, fascinating post.

Bereaved and Blessed is celebrating the best possible outcome when it comes to the results from an ultrasound on her breast. She felt optimistic going into the test, but points out that she has been on the wrong side of the odds before when it comes to fertility and loss. She writes: “I’ve learned not to take anything for granted or put too much weight in odds. When you’ve fallen into the less than 1% chance category more than once in your life good odds don’t always seem nearly as comforting.” Glad she’s doing okay.

Lastly, The Road Less Travelled muses on postponed weddings due to COVID-19. You still get to have the love, even if you don’t get the ceremony, but I’m not belittling the sadness that comes from missed life cycle events. Both for the couple AND for the guests, as Loribeth explains. I miss weddings. I miss parties and getting dressed up, even though I never enjoyed those things before this point. The world changes. We change with it.

The roundup to the Roundup: A Little Bit Alexis. Your weekly backup nudge. And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between August 28 – September 4) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week? Read the original open thread post here.