We finally saw Three Identical Strangers this week.  If you don’t know the documentary, it’s about the Louise Wise Services adoption agency, which purposefully separated several sets of multiples back in the 1960s and studied them over the years without the children OR their parents knowing that they had a twin/triplet somewhere in the world.

The triplets found each other back in 1980s, and the film covers their unification and life in the aftermath.  At least two other sets of twins found each other, too — one set is featured in the film (and have their own film) and another set found each other because one saw Three Identical Strangers and wondered about the possibility because her parents also used the same agency.

It’s interesting how you see a film through a certain lens. I focused on the fact that they were multiples. Josh focused on the fact that it was an adoption story. Another person could see it through the lens of family or loss or mental well-being or science.

But the night we saw the film, I had just come from going through the twins’ fourth birthday pictures. They were standing next to each other outside in front of the house, and then one took the other one’s hand. The pictures are the two of them running around the yard, ending with them hugging by the fence. And I felt physically ill watching the film because while it’s not a given that your twins will be close, to purposefully separate children after five or six months together in the bassinet is unfathomable. To withhold the possibility of that hand-holding moment is cruel. Their story has been in my heart all week.

Have you seen it?

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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.

My Perfect Breakdown explains her decision to continue her blog, despite being creeped out about some privacy issues.  She writes, “I never want someone to feel as lonely as I did when we went through our first miscarriage, or made the decision to terminate for medical reasons or even or even when we went through our last miscarriage. Experiencing multiple losses has become a defining part of who I am, and so I feel compelled to continue to share my experiences so others know they are not alone.”  I love that this is the impulse in our corner of the Internet; to give people a space to find other people who understand.

No Kidding in NZ has a great quote about bravery setting you free.  I can attest to the opposite — that a lack of bravery makes you feel really stuck.  It’s a great reminder that sometimes we have to do the hard thing and trust that we’ll get through it.  And that getting through it will release us from what is weighing us down before we take that first, brave step.

Lastly, Inexplicably Missing doesn’t know what to do next.  She begins: “I was heading somewhere, at least I thought I was. Yes, I’m sure. I had an idea of where I was going. There was a journey I was on. I was heading somewhere. But I have discovered that the trail just petered out and kind of… led to… nowhere.”  What do you do when the path you’re on doesn’t take you where you want to go?  It’s a moving post about not knowing what comes next.

The roundup to the Roundup: Three Identical Strangers is still bothering me.  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 November 23rd and November 30th) 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.

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.

Carolyn Hax gets it.  Usually, that is.  I mean, the woman isn’t a robot.  She sometimes overlooks things, but on the whole, she gets it.  I loved her explanation of what it means to live childfree after infertility in a recent column.  I saved this until Thanksgiving was over because I didn’t want it to get buried in the holiday posts.

The situation was a same-sex couple: one wanted a child, the advice seeker didn’t.  They would clearly need assistance to conceive, so let’s try-but-not-try was out of the question.  They decided to not have a child, and the advice seeker stated: I see this as nothing more than sticking to our default state of childlessness, but my partner clearly thinks I have gotten my way and feels owed something in return.

Advice seeker wonders why getting a pet wasn’t a reasonable substitution.  Carolyn gently explained what the questioner couldn’t understand.

That they weren’t sticking a default state because her partner had been in a different state.  Yes, before and after were both without a child, but before — for the partner — included a future where she was a mother.  And after — for the partner — was a future where she was no longer a possible mother.  I often see people write that they didn’t lose anything, so they don’t know how to mourn, but Hax points that people DO lose something: they lose their future self.  No small loss.

Hax states:

Your decision lopped off your partner’s expected life path. You came to it mutually, yes, but in areas where there is no compromise, just either-or, even a mutual decision means one of you 100 percent gets your way. You did here. This is not just something your partner “thinks.”

But maybe the most important point of all:

You can’t provide a substitute for a child. You didn’t choose a different thing, you chose a different life.

That is IT.  There is no substitute, which is why there is no simple way to “get over it” or “move on.”  You need to mourn because there is nothing else that can fill a child-sized hole except a child.  That’s not to say you will forever feel a breeze blowing through you, but just that it’s an actual loss that needs to be recognized by others and mourned by the person/couple experiencing the loss.

And that concept that it impacts your life.  It changes your life path.  And that is no small thing, too.  It needs to be acknowledged.  Not pitied but acknowledged because we should recognize people’s life changing events.

Hax tells the question asker, your partner is grieving.  And with this simple statement, she opens the door to empathy.  To care.  To offering a kind word and a hug and not an opinion.

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

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It’s that time of year when whatever we struggle with comes to a head.  Blame it on the presentation of the unattainable, perfect life.  Blame it on unrealistic movies, commercials, and social media feeds.  Blame it on the fact that we get sucked in even when we know it’s as fake as snow at Disney World.

If you’re feeling completely down about a problem you’ve been chipping away at forever, psychologists have found the secret to getting motivated again: give advice to someone who is struggling with the same problem.  It’s a really brilliant study, pointing out that people who are dealing with the problem are experts on the problem.

The post points out: “If you’re completely clueless about the resources or strategies necessary for progress, asking for help is probably the best first step. But if you (like most of us), know what you need to do, but are having trouble actually doing it, giving someone advice may be the push you need.”

So what advice do you have to give?

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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.

I got new glasses.  When I went in to choose the new frames, I started by looking at glasses that looked similar to my current glasses.  But the woman convinced me to go in a completely different direction, hinting that I may one day need bifocals and my current frame is too thin and small for progressives.

I am trying to get accustomed to them because (1) they’re a new prescription and (2) they’re a little uncomfortable still, but I think I like them?  I don’t know.

(I have really short arms, and I’m not very good at taking a selfie.  Plus my hair is in a messy bun.  I’m a mess.  That’s it.  I’m actually a mess.)

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I’m reading my first James Bond novel.  It’s my first experience with James Bond; meaning, I’ve never seen a James Bond film.  The only thing I know about the character is what I learned at the Spy Museum’s 007 exhibit.

I mentally grade every book I read.  If I grade a book an A or a B, I keep reading.  If I grade a book a D or an F, I stop.  C’s are in limbo; usually they either become a low B and I keep reading, or I decide they’re really a D and I stop.  But the entire concept of James Bond has stayed solidly in C territory for me, and I’m over 100 pages in.  This almost never happens.  I don’t like it enough to keep reading, AND I don’t hate it enough to stop.

So maybe I should have started this by saying, “I’m reading my first and maybe last James Bond novel.”

Do you like James Bond?  Why or why not?