I read the greatest quote on Gretchen Rubin’s site this week, in an interview with Belinda Luscombe:

We don’t find soul mates, like some fantastic shell on the beach. We become them. And as we do, the other person becomes ours.

Isn’t that such a beautiful way of putting it? That it’s not something you’re finding, it’s something you’re building. Maybe it comes down to the fact that some people are worth building it with because they’re building it back with you, and some people just won’t be a good fit for the work.

So, yeah, I sometimes call Josh my b’shert––a Yiddish term for destiny or soul mate––but really, the universe stuck him in front of me. We did the hard work of building this life together.

For 11 years, I have diligently avoided reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. (1) I don’t like epistolary novels. (2) The title annoyed me. (3) The fact that everyone gushed about it made me feel like there was a veeeeeeery good chance that I wouldn’t enjoy it. (4) It contains 0% magic or monsters.

But… The ChickieNob and I were looking for something to watch, and I told her that we should try the first ten minutes of the Netflix movie to see the scenery in Guernsey. We were about to give up because it was taking so long to get to Guernsey (at that point, I didn’t know the movie was shot in North Devon, so we were not going to see Guernsey… ever) when she received that first letter from Dawsey.

And then. Oh my G-d. I loved the story so much. I would say, “Why didn’t you all tell me how much I would love The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society?” Because everyone said it. And I didn’t believe it. And now I’m going backwards to read the book because it is such a great story.

*******

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.

*******

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:

• “Being a Mom Is Kind of Awkward After Infertility” (RisaKerslake)
• “It’s All About Perspective” (Fighting Infertility)

Okay, now my choices this week.

I learned a new term from My Path to Mommyhood: Toxic positivity. She explains: “Nothing makes you feel lonelier than when you are honestly wondering what you did to warrant such utter horrible luck in every aspect of family building, if you can keep going, if people will understand if you CAN’T keep going… and you are faced with the following…” You’ll have to click over to read the list and understand, and I promise, it’s worth it so you don’t accidentally utter any of these in the name of positivity.

Raising the A Team has a post about setting a date (the next embryo freezing bill) for deciding on whether to try for a third child. She writes, “As a kid, I always expected to have two kids and it wasn’t until I met Laurie and we started planning our dream family that having 3 even occurred to me. But once I had it in my mind, it stuck there and now it’s grown into my plan.” Those thoughts are hard to shake out of your head, even when facing other facts. It’s an interesting take on the question.

By the Brooke explains the thoughts that went through her head after losing her baby: “In my weird grief mindset, having a baby shower was basically calling attention to your pregnancy and asking the universe to take it away.” Which takes her into the meat of the post. First of all, I love the title: “All the Luck in the Universe,” which she explains through a story that is just as good as The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society! A tale of two friends, two babies, and enormous love flowing between the families.

The roundup to the Roundup: Realizing that I love The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society after all.  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 July 19th and 26th) 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.

Usually when we have crusty bread with dinner, I slice the bread and put the pieces in a serving bowl that matches our plates. But one night last week, the twins were with my parents, and I cut up the bread and put the smaller amount in a glass soup bowl.

“That’s a tiny bowl of bread,” Josh pointed out.

“That’s what our bowl of bread is going to look like in four years,” I replied.

In four years, the twins will be in college, and we will be eating our meals again as a twosome. I don’t like to think about it, but we have to think about it because it’s the one piece of helpful advice other twin parents have given us to make the transition easier. It’s a big jolt to go from a full house to an empty nest all at once. Everyone has told us to have a plan in place before it happens so we don’t spend the first few months completely lost.

So far, we have thrown out a handful of hobbies that we plan to pick up over the next year or two so we have a few distractions in place. I’m looking into volunteer work, trying to get involved in new organizations now so I can step into a leadership position down the road. Josh and I have talked about going to the UK once a year, spending a few days seeing shows in London and then traveling out to a different area, such as the Channel Islands or Scotland, for another week.

I am scared of the glass bowl of bread; knowing that it will be an almost-every-night thing and not a one-off meal because the twins are doing something else. Maybe THAT is where I should be focusing my efforts; obtaining the most awesome bread bowl in the world so I don’t have to see the tiny glass bowl and think about how I’d rather be using the big one that matches our plates.

Huffington Post re-ran a piece where the author talks about a time when she shared a story and the person in mourning lashed out at her. The author points out our tendency to default to sharing ourselves. “When she began to share her raw emotions, I felt uncomfortable. I didn’t know what to say, so I defaulted to a subject with which I was comfortable: myself.”

She wasn’t malicious. She was trying to comfort her by pointing out a connection.

She wanted to talk to me about her father, to tell me about the kind of man he was, so I could fully appreciate the magnitude of her loss. Instead, I asked her to stop for a moment and listen to my story about my dad’s tragic death.

And what follows is a deep look into how she defaults to sharing in general. “I started to notice how often I responded to stories of loss and struggle with stories of my own experiences.” It is just as easy to respond with, “Tell me about him,” as it is to respond with your own story of loss.

Except.

I looked at the shift responses in the post, and the reality is that hearing someone else understands and has a similar story (and maybe even thoughts on how to lessen the emotional pain) has made me feel less alone during a difficult time. I think it’s too simple to say, “always respond with support and never with shift,” and miss the point. In order to make human connections, we need to connect. And sometimes that happens — for me — through a shift response. From hearing that someone else has gone through something, too, when they actually have knowledge into what I’m possibly feeling.

What are your thoughts?

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

*******

Carolyn Hax’s commenters rounded out her recent answer with additional advice. A woman asks whether she needs to invite her surrogate to her baby shower. Hax answers that she doesn’t BUT asks her to check her reasoning.

But it’s a commenter that provides the idea of sitting with the decision and wondering how you’ll feel the day after, “when it’s too late to change anything.” I would have additionally asked how you’ll feel looking at pictures from the event in the future. Will you be okay explaining your reasoning to your child if they see the pictures and ask why the surrogate wasn’t there?

What do you think of the situation? Personally, I would have opted for the surrogate to attend just so I didn’t have any regrets because this one wouldn’t pass the regret test for me.

*******

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.