Another post about Every Exquisite Thing by Matthew Quick, and, no, you don’t need to have read the book to be able to understand this and have thoughts on the matter. Because today we’re talking about quitting.

Not quitting the book, though that may end up being someone’s answer. Just quitting. In general.

In the same scene in the coffeehouse, the author (remember, it’s a book about a book) asks the main character on page 18: “Don’t you ever feel like you want to quit doing something everyone else makes you feel like you’re supposed to keep doing? Didn’t you ever just simply want to… stop?”

And later: “What do you want to quit more than anything else in the world?”

I was drawn to the word “quit” because it’s very different from the word “stop.” We stop the car, bringing it from movement to non-movement. We don’t quit the car. But when we talk about stopping forward movement; changing direction in our life and stopping movement in one space in order to start movement in another, we call it quitting. Not stopping. Quitting.

Which has negative connotations associated with it. Quit a job. Quit on their marriage. Quit calling. Whereas pain stops. Sadness ceases. Stories conclude. Life ends.

Words matter.

I think those of us experiencing infertility know that. We hear the word “quit” quite often; both in terms of being admonished for stopping trying something and for not stopping trying something. And in both cases, the word “stop” is more accurate. You are stopping doing this so you can do that. Or you are not stopping doing this because it is not the right time to stop.

I can’t think of anything I want to quit, though there are plenty of things I want to stop — that I will stop doing because I always shed a few activities going into summer so we can pick up new ones in the fall. I’m not quitting these things; walking away in a huff. I’m just stepping away so I can try something new.

It’s like I reached a stop sign, I’m pausing, and then I’m going to turn left and start down a new road.

And there are things I want to stop because they don’t serve me in any way: fears, frustrations, and looping thoughts. But even these I want to stop, not quit. Maybe they deserve the word “quit;” but I still think about them in terms of stopping.

Do you want to stop anything?

Josh and I had to clean out our bathroom so the contractor could gut the space and make way for a new vanity.  The old vanity had chunks of paint missing from the time when I taped the drawers shut so the Wolvog would stop opening them as he crawled around the bathroom during my shower.  How was I to know that the tape would take the paint along with it when I finally peeled it away to put tot locks on the drawers?

We dug down into the dark recesses of the vanity, unearthing birth control pills.  Birth control pills, people.  These were not from treatments; in fact, they expired back in 2002.  Why did I keep them?  I don’t know.  Maybe because they were a tangible reminder of a different time period in life, a time period when I thought I needed birth control?

We threw out an expired peestick.  An unused peestick.  During the height of my addiction of urinating way too early, I went through several peesticks per cycle, and it felt like an insult to drop this one, unused peestick into the trash simply because the box said it expired in 2014.  (Please do not tell me that I could have still used it because I will go to the dump to get it back.)

There were the hotel soaps (you take them, too) and stretched-out ponytail holders and whimsical hair clips that I wore through college.  Numerous opened containers of Q-tips because we somehow always lose the box underneath the sink.  A cartoon Daredevil with a voice bubble saying, “Not in my bathroom.”  So many tweezers.  How did I end up with that many tweezers?

And then two things: the positive peestick and the faded hospital bracelet that I cut off my wrist and stuffed in a drawer when the twins came home.  The lines are still dark pink.  The words are entirely missing from the band.  Two ends of a journey I waited a long time to take.

I could have thrown them out.  I don’t need them; they serve no purpose.  But I slipped them into a box to pack away.  They mean something.  They’re just useless things.  They’re everything.

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

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The BBC had an article about whether a country can really have a personality, and what that even means in regards to its residents.  For instance, do you think YOUR country has a personality?  I’m willing to hazard a guess that you describe the personality of your country in positive terms, whereas other countries are mostly ascribed neutral or negative terms.  (Unless, I guess, you hate where you live.)

And, next, is that the average personality of the people in your country?  Because, if not, what does the personality of a country even mean?  So let’s assume that you agree — the personality of your country is a reflection of the average resident of your country.

Lastly, do YOU fit your country’s personality?

Try to answer these questions BEFORE you read other comments below.  It will be interesting to see how residents of the same country answer.

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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.

No spoilers unless you haven’t read the book.  In which case, sure, there are spoilers.  But really, you haven’t read the book AND you’re worried about Handmaid’s Tale spoilers?

We’re making our way through Hulu’s new Handmaid’s Tale series.  There have been small changes from the book to the screen, the most notable being the age of the wives.

The wives in the book are middle-aged to older women.  Serena Joy walks with a cane.  Offred grows up seeing her on television.  The commander is an older man, grey-haired.

But in the series, both are still in prime, baby-making years.  The wife is blond.  The commander young.  Their handmaid is their peer; not a much younger woman.  Offred is considered fertile because she had a child at one point.  Their places could have been reversed if the wife had been capable of bearing children.  If she had married a different man.

Which is what makes the theme of infertility that much more heartbreaking.

Infertility was part of the book, but it was always with the thought that the wives were past the age of possible fertility.  The sting of their inability to reproduce was still there, but it was muted from living with it for years.

On the screen, infertility becomes part of the current moment.  The wife is infertile, her handmaid is not.

The first episode contains the familiar Ceremony Day scene; Offred lying between the wife’s legs.  In the book, Serena Joy comes off as crotchety, kicking Offred out of the bedroom, almost as if she’s annoyed by the drama, a woman who was okay being child-free who now needs to participate in this government-sanctioned charade.  Whereas on the screen, it is a heartbreaking moment.  The wife is fighting back tears as she snarls at Offred to leave, and it is clear that jealousy — not indignation — is driving the words to come out of her mouth.

It made me side with the wife.

Because her tears felt so familiar, even if my own (and your own) tears have come from different situations.  No, I’ve never had to lie on a bed with another woman between my legs, but I have had to lie on a table while a doctor completed the task.  I know how family building feels when it doesn’t look anything like the family building fantasies of a childhood mind.

I identified more with the wife than with Offred.  Don’t get me wrong; I felt gutted for Offred, but my allegiance was with the wife who had to endure the monthly reminder — like all of us — that she couldn’t reproduce on her own.

I wonder if the shift in age is due to some horrible Hollywood bias against older women or something more heartfelt. Perhaps Margaret Atwood absorbed stories of infertility — knowingly or unknowingly — over the years, she tweaked this detail from page to screen to convey the emotional side of infertility for everyone who watched.

Josh and I decided (well, really, I decided and told Josh) that we were going to become members of Mason Jar Nation.  We were going to Pinterest-up our breakfast and lunch within an inch of its life and eat everything out of glass containers.  When we first proposed it to the kids, they mocked the idea.  But the ChickieNob has since switched sides and joined Mason Jar Nation (which is like Tiny House Nation, except with lunch in a jar), leaving her brother alone in Sandwichland.

Every week, we decide on a single salad and then make dozens of copies in the mason jars.  In the morning, you just grab a jar and go.  The whole meal is inside the jar, like this:

Salad (from bottom to top): peanut dressing, edamame, noodles, red and yellow pepper, cucumbers, and crunchy noodles

When you’re ready to eat, you just mix it all up.  Nothing gets soggy because the dressing is at the bottom and a nonabsorbent protein is layered on top of the dressing.

We also make refrigerator oats, but those are gross-looking while delicious-tasting, so no pictures.

Even more joyful is making up songs about being part of Mason Jar Nation and singing them to Linus.  He cannot become a member because his head would likely get trapped in the jar, but we involve him by giving him bits of vegetables while we chop.

Year of the mason jar.  Best meal plan ever.

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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:

• “And now, the Quiet Grief” (By the Brooke)

Okay, now my choices this week.

The Road Less Travelled has a post about the “he needs a cousin (brother, sister, etc)!” chant with a twist: People are talking about a dog.  But the post calls into question why we say these things, and how it sounds to the person on the receiving end.  She writes, “‘Now where have I heard THIS before?’  I thought, rolling my eyes and biting my cybertongue before typing out a light-hearted response along the lines that Puppy seems to be enjoying having all the attention to himself, thankyouverymuch.”  I think I like Cristy’s comment best: “It’s always interesting how fast others are to saddle someone with responsibility.”

It is NIAW this week, and I’ve seen many fewer posts than in past years.  Infertilityhonesty has been doing a series all week.  In one, she writes about eight ways you can support a person with infertility.  A great post to share as a link on social media, hint hint hint.

Lastly, Bent Not Broken has a post about the grief she feels this spring in particular, a time when she imagined she would be ensconced in soccer season, not missing children who aren’t here.  It’s a beautiful, brief post.

The roundup to the Roundup: Mason jar lunches.  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 April 21st and 28th) 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.