A few odds & ends

A couple of articles/posts to share: 

• Tracey Cleantis Dwyer -- formerly at "La Belette Rouge" (a blog which no longer exists) -- has returned to blogging via Substack!  Check out "The Next Happy Project." 
• I highly recommend Tracey's 2015 book "The Next Happy," which is all about letting go of the life you had planned -- something Tracey, who is childless after infertility, knows a lot about. 
• Disclosure:  I'm in the book. :)  I answered survey questions for Tracey as part of her research.  I also reviewed the book on my blog not long after it was published, here. 
• This Sunday, March 15th is "Mothering Sunday" in Britain, and The Full Stop community and podcast has published a post on Linked In with suggestions for "Navigating Mother's Day When You're Childless Not by Choice." (Also very applicable for Mother's Day in May, here in North America & elsewhere in the world.)  

Non-ALI/CNBC related:  

• It wasn't just our imaginations -- this winter really was as cold and snowy as it seemed, the Toronto Star confirms by looking at the historical weather data.  
• The time changed last weekend -- and it struck me that my mother was no longer here to complain about it (as she always, always did!).  Wherever she is now, I know it's a place where time is meaningless. Enjoy, Mom.  :)  
• This coming weekend (Sunday night) is the Oscars. 
• I used to follow the Oscar races like a hawk (I even won the office Oscar pool once!), and tried to see as many of the nominated movies as I could (the ones that interested me, anyway).  These days, I think I am only aware of "Hamnet" (with its ties to a well-known book and its grief/child loss theme -- not to mention Paul Mescal, lol), but not many of the other nominees.  
• Mel recently posted about "The Last Movie I Saw;" I think the last one I saw in-theatre was "1917" (which was very good, and one of those movies that really deserves to be seen in a theatre). The pandemic began not long after that and, well, you know the rest. We used to go to the movies, perhaps not every Sunday, but usually at least one Sunday a month. Many things have returned to some form of normalcy since then, but we still haven't been back to the theatre.  I am not sure how we got out of the habit, but we did.  I do miss it sometimes. 
• Nevertheless, I will be watching on Sunday.  :) 
• This will be my first Oscar night without my Mom. :(  She always watched, and when I was growing up, she would let me stay up late -- on a school night! -- to watch with her. I more recent years, I would always call her before the show started (even though she hadn't been to a movie theatre in years either). 
• I'm sure she will be watching from wherever she is now.  And I hope there's a bottomless bucket of popcorn, and that it doesn't bother her stomach, as it did in her later years (to the point that she had to stop eating it).  

Odds & ends

• YES!!!!!!  Casting for three of the four main roles in the movie version of Richard Osman's "The Thursday Murder Club" was announced on Tuesday:  Helen Mirren as Elizabeth (the ONLY person I could ever picture in the role!!), Ben Kingsley as Ibrahim (on my casting list as a possibility), and Pierce Brosnan as Ron.  Never would have thought of him! -- but I think he will work out fine! Joyce, still TBA. (I've always pictured Penelope Wilton, or possibly Julie Walters.)  I love, love, LOVE these books!  I am so happy with these casting choices, and I CANNOT WAIT!!! to see the movie! ❤  (Haven't been to a movie theatre since pre-pandemic -- this would be worth risking covid for!  lol)   
• Links to my reviews of the books in the series, in order of publication:  
• "The Thursday Murder Club"  
• "The Man Who Died Twice" 
• "The Bullet That Missed" 
• "The Bullet That Missed (re-read)" 
• "The Last Devil to Die" 
• I kind of forgot (as I often do) that this was National Infertility Awareness Week. I've been busy and I haven't been on social media as much this week as I sometimes am, so I didn't realize it until I was looking at some Instagram posts -- "oh yeah...!"  It kind of feels like it doesn't apply to me anymore, as someone 20+ years out from fertility treatments, and permanently childless. 
• Except that it DOES apply. I'm (still) infertile, and always will be -- nothing has changed in that respect. And I saw a great Instagram Story from Katy at Childless Collective, pointing out that a good chunk (probably the majority!) of the billions upon billions of dollars in profits made by the pharmaceutical companies who are the major sponsors of NIAW actually came from US -- the people who did fertility treatments (often multiple cycles) that never worked, and eventually, ultimately, walked away with empty arms. If those companies invested even just a fraction of those huge profits into providing better support services and counselling and other such off-ramps for those of us whose treatments were unsuccessful and who had to stop, it might make a horribly fraught and jarring transition just a little bit easier to survive. (But I won't hold my breath...!) 
• "Fertility clinics in Ontario are desperately in need of government oversight," says an opinion piece in the Toronto Star this week. (Surprise!) (Not sure if this is behind a paywall, but unfortunately, no gift links apparently available.)  
• Got my first opt-out email related to Mother's Day last week (from Ancestry -- see the screenshot, above). May there be many more!  (But I haven't noticed any since then... and I'm not holding my breath...!)  
• Have you seen the most recent TV commercial for Priceline with Kaley Cuoco (Penny on "The Big Bang Theory")?  
• "Hey, with Priceline VIP Family you can unlock deals five times faster... you don't even have to be an actual family," she chirps. (!)
• The guys she's talking to immediately start arguing, "Oh, I'd be the dad!" "I'm the dad!" etc. -- until Kaley says "Okay, which dad is paying?" -- and they all start pointing at each other. 
• Okay, you don't have to be an "actual family" to qualify -- i.e., no discrimination against singles or non-parents -- which is good (I guess?). But that phrase -- "an actual family" -- has me grinding my teeth. (Define "an actual family," right??) 
• (In fact, if anyone can get the deals, why is it even called "Priceline VIP Family" in the first place??)  
• Rosalyn Scott, who runs the NoMo Book Club on Instagram, has a new website featuring interviews with childless & childfree writers. Check it out at Other Words! 
• Mali has an essay in a new book that's coming out soon!  "Otherhood" is a collection of essays from New Zealand writers on being childless, childfree and child-adjacent, edited by Kathryn Van Beek, Alie Benge and Lil O'Brien. It's being released in NZ on May 9th. I checked a couple of North American bookseller websites, and it seems the e-book/Kindle version will be available here that day too, but we will have to wait until August for the paper edition. More details in Mali's recent post. 
• Infertile Phoenix is stepping away from her blog for a while. :(  Go leave her some appreciative words!  
• I am really enjoying Kirsten Powers's Substack, "Changing the Channel," and her most recent post really struck a chord with me -- and I suspect it will with many of you too:  " 'Winners' Know When To Quit:  Why we need to understand the power of letting go of what is not working." It's free to read (and the interview is free to watch -- there's a transcript you can download too) for a week (i.e., until about May 1st), and then it will go behind a subscriber paywall. (I'm just a free subscriber -- so far... can my budget afford yet another Substack subscription??  Hmmmm....)  
• I haven't watched the video or read the transcript yet -- and from what I can tell, there's not a word said about infertility treatments &/or childlessness -- but there's a line near the end that summarizes the message in a nutshell:  "We all need to learn how to quit before we hit rock bottom."  AMEN!  
• "Is It Okay To Dislike Children?"  Jill Filipovic, who is childfree by choice, ponders this question on her Substack. A couple of excerpts (but do go and read the whole thing -- I don't think it's paywalled):  

In the US, it’s overwhelmingly the same people who style themselves as pro-child and pro-family who are the most politically hostile to the actual well-being of children. Conservatives have for decades emphasized their love of children and babies, while cutting funding for public education and children’s healthcare, doing nothing to stop the gun murders of children in schools, opposing paid leave for the people who birth and raise those children, stripping school lunches of any nutritional value, and sometimes putting deadly weapons in their own children’s hands and then taking family Christmas photos. These are not generally people who identify as “child-free.” They are overwhelmingly people who say they love kids. But they are people who are really, really bad for children....

Most child-free people, as far as I can tell, do not hate children. Many adore children, they just don’t want to raise them; others don’t adore children and generally avoid them but don’t hate them either. And no doubt many people who really dislike children or are hostile to children in public spaces are also parents. But regardless of the reality, the childfree are generally the ones presumed to be hostile to children. So it’s interesting to look at the demographics of the child-free in America, where not having children is disproportionately common among highly-educated city-dwelling liberal women and gay men, and realize that the same people being tarred as child-haters are also the ones overwhelmingly voting and advocating for the policies which most benefit children and mothers. If that goes along with preferring a dog-friendly child-free local pub and allowing a look of annoyance to cross one’s face when one hears a screaming baby in a fancy restaurant, honestly, I’ll take it.

#MicroblogMondays: Odds & ends

(I don't particularly like combining an "odds & ends" post with #MicroblogMondays, but it's what I have today so... here it is!)  

• I don't remember exactly where I found Ryan Rose Weaver on Substack, but I think it was in a response to another Substacker's post where she mentioned her pregnancy loss.  This interview she did with Jess Van Wyen, who has chosen to remain childless/free after loss -- not a miscarriage or stillbirth but a termination for medical reasons (TFMR -- in plain language, an abortion) -- and has since become an advocate for reproductive rights -- is truly inspiring and says so many of the things many of us as childless women are thinking, feeling and wishing we could tell other people about our lives.  **Content warning: Given the sensitive topic, this may or may not be a good fit for you as a reader. Also, pregnancy & baby loss photos are included.** 
• Lyz Lenz at "Men Yell at Me" has a new book coming out soon about divorce, "This American Ex-Wife." (She also has a new podcast by the same name.) In a recent discussion thread,  she asked her subscribers (which includes me) to weigh in on "the moment when you knew it was time to quit."  
• Said Lyz:  "I want to expand this beyond marriages. I want to know the moment when you knew it was time to quit — your job, your relationship, your friendships. Let’s talk about our moments of breaking." 
• I posted about the moment when I knew it was time to quit infertility treatments and accept a permanently childless life (which I've written about on this blog). Another woman posted something similar not long after I did, too.  :)  
• So far, my comment has received 37 (!) "likes" as well as a couple of replies.   
• I'm a big fan of my fellow Manitoban Dr. Jen Gunter :)  and I am looking forward to picking up a copy of her latest book, "Blood" (about menstruation), which was released this past week. Here's a great review from The Guardian. 
• Totally non-ALI-related, but I thought it was worthwhile passing along:  I'm a (non-paid) subscriber to Chris Cilizza's Substack, "So What?"  Chris writes primarily about U.S. politics, which is what he did when he was at CNN and (before that) the Washington Post. But he's also written a lot about the experience of losing his job at CNN -- including this piece here.  
• Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt.  I can relate, and I know I would have appreciated his words back then. 
• (In July, it will be TEN YEARS since I got my own marching papers!! Can you believe it?? Yikes!!)  
• All of my job loss-related posts are tagged "job loss,"  here. 

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here. 

Abso-frickin'-lutely :)

 

A Facebook find. :) 
(h/t to my longtime CNBC buddy & sometimes commenter here, Doubleme.  :)  ) 

Odds & ends and midweek meltdowns

• Another week, another funeral. :(  Between my recent cold, two funerals in two weeks (one week apart), getting ready to head off to dh's cousin's cottage, and then to go home, plus all the usual household stuff (cleaning, laundry, etc.)... I am exhausted.
• Dh & I had a spat en route to the funeral this morning, which resulted in a mini-meltdown from me.  :(  Lately he's just been wearing a cloth mask -- which is better than nothing, of course, but nowhere near as effective as an N-95, or even a medical/surgical mask -- even though we are well stocked with several different models of N-95s & equivalents. He claims he can't breathe in them. (eyeroll) There were a lot more people at this visitation/funeral than the one last week -- the air purifier in the visitation room at the funeral home did not seem to be running, nor the air conditioning, and unlike last week, we were the ONLY ONES wearing masks this time around. I don't care that I'm the odd one out, but I DO care that the odds of me getting sick, even when I've had four shots to date and am wearing a good mask and using hand sanitizer liberally and doing my best to do all the right things, are increased because so many other people aren't willing to do the same. 
• I feel like I am SO CLOSE -- tantalizingly close!! -- to getting home to see my parents, 10 months -- almost ANOTHER WHOLE YEAR after our last visit (last Christmas) (and after a crappy summer full of heat and humidity and surgeries and staying home to avoid covid) -- and I'm so afraid that one of us is going to get sick, or something is else going to happen to prevent me from getting there. :(   
• Reinforcing that fear: every time I open my Facebook feed or my blog reader lately, another person is sick with covid -- and quite often someone who has managed to dodge it so far until now -- three today alone. :(   (I wish I was exaggerating.) 
• Adding to my stress this week:  the federal government announced that it's rescinding all travel and border-related covid measures, including mask mandates on planes and trains. Effective October 1st (Friday). Just BEFORE we are about to fly, of course...! 
• Then I told my mother (over the phone) that we are planning to fly with just carry-ons this time around, in an attempt not to lose our luggage in the chaos that has been Toronto Pearson Airport recently... we even made a special trip to the mall to buy new ones (our first visit there in more than a year, and only our second since the advent of covid). And she tells me she's cleaning closets, and I need to bring an extra suitcase with me so that I can bring back more of my stuff. (Like I have room for it here in my 874-square-foot condo anyway??)  I'm glad she (finally??) seems to be getting serious about cleaning out the house more -- but even if I brought an extra suitcase (which I'm not, not this time around), there is only so much I can bring back anyway. 
• (Serenity now...!!) 
• The bad news just keeps on coming lately.  One of my best friends from childhood lost her husband this week. Cancer. He was just 64. :(   I knew he'd been sick, but I didn't realize he was THAT sick.  :(  
• From The Globe & Mail:  "We need to talk about the big lies behind freezing your eggs," a refreshingly honest essay by Alison Motluk. Sample passage: 

I’m here to tell you that it’s okay not to freeze your eggs. 

Decades from now, we will look back on this as one of the biggest boondoggles of our generation. We will talk about how we duped our young women, took their money in return for false hope, channelled them toward ruinous choices and left many not just in debt, but childless. All the while, we failed to resolve the real issues behind why many women who want children don’t feel they’re able to have them.

• As usual, beware the comments...! 
• Motluk has a Substack newsletter (as I've said, Substack is the new blog...!), HeyReprotech. This article appears to be taken from there (albeit it's behind a subscriber paywall). The archives go back to July 2018!   
• Thanks to Pamela for flagging this article from The Hill for me on the same topic: "Success of egg freezing depends on these two factors, new study finds:  Patients who froze their eggs before they turned 38 or froze more eggs had about a 50 percent birth rate." 
• From The Atlantic:  "Why Quitting Is Underrated" by Annie Duke, a former poker player (!), based on her forthcoming book, "Quit:  The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away." Infertility is not mentioned, but it's certainly relevant...! 
• Those of us who wind up childless not by choice often feel like we have to "compensate" in some way by doing something big and bold and spectacular with our lives. That's why I loved this recent article from the New York Times by Sarah Wildman:  "I Don’t Need My Life to Be Remarkable."  (Content warning: the story involves a child with cancer.) Sample passage: 

Many years ago, before we had children, an old family friend who was a therapist offered a gentle bit of advice to my partner, Ian, who was wrestling with his future after leaving the Peace Corps early: Don’t look for every moment to be a 10, she told him. Sometimes you have to celebrate the fours, fives and sixes.

When Ian repeated it to me, we laughed. It felt like settling, if not an outright failure, not to seek something better. Up to that point we had always looked beyond where we stood to other, brighter moments. It would become a bit of a family joke between us: If something went awry we’d say, “Can you celebrate a one or a two?”

I’m no longer laughing. I’ve come to see the wisdom in not just seeking but finding joy in the mundane, in the unremarkable, even in the frankly boring, particularly in this era of global — and personal — illness. I realize I am far from unique in my efforts to appreciate the moment. It is the essence of mindfulness, the stuff of my (often failed) efforts to meditate. But it has allowed me to stand still when I might otherwise never stop moving.

Odds & ends & funerals for the weekend

• Last Friday, dh's aunt (his mom's sister) died at the age of 89. (I mentioned it in my #MicroblogMondays post earlier this week.) 
• I was still dealing with my cold (I'm doing better, but not 100 per cent yet), and of course I don't want to come down with anything worse before we head west to see my family in two weeks' time... so we took our own car to the afternoon visitation on Tuesday (even though we often go to these things together with BIL & SIL), and I kept my N-95 mask on almost the entire time. (I was pleasantly surprised by the number of people who also wore masks... nowhere near all who came, of course, but more than I had anticipated.)  
• There was an evening session as well, and many of the cousins who came to the afternoon session stayed on for that -- heading over to a nearby restaurant to eat in between. They invited us to come along, and if these were normal times, we would have gladly said yes. I miss getting together with them. But we still haven't eaten in a restaurant since March 2020, and as I said, I'm trying to be extra-cautious right now before our trip west -- so we sent our regrets and headed home. We saw them all again (plus the cousins who came to the evening visitation) the next morning at the funeral mass & committal. (We wore masks then too.) 
• SIL called us from their car as we were driving home from the funeral -- she & BIL, their aunt, her daughter and son-in-law were all going out for lunch at a restaurant near our condo building, and did we want to come? Again, regretfully, we said thanks  no thanks. It was nice to be asked, even though I'm pretty sure they knew we'd say no...! 
• Dh's cousin gave a lovely eulogy... which of course made me wonder: who (if anyone) will eulogize me when I'm gone? (And what will they say??  lol)  
• And now, we get to do it all over again...!  :(  This morning, we had a text (not unexpected) from dh's cousin:  HER mother died, age 91. We are just waiting to hear about the arrangements. 
• This aunt was dh's mother's sister-in-law (married to her oldest brother), and had been living at the same seniors residence as the other aunt for the past several years. She was in good health until just recently, and spent the last few weeks in hospice/palliative care, where she was still asking for Tim Hortons "iced caps" (iced cappucinos) almost to the very end. Her daughter texted another cousin while we were all at the funeral home for the other aunt, saying the priest had been called to give last rites, so we knew the end was near. This aunt said she hoped she & the other aunt would "go hand in hand," and she pretty much got her wish. 
• Dh lived at their house for the first few years of his life, before his dad bought their own house, a few blocks away, in the Greektown area of Toronto. All the relatives lived near each other in those days, but this family was the closest to them, geographically, and he & BIL were particularly close to the two kids -- the daughter is two years older than dh, and the son is the same age as BIL. (He's referred to elsewhere in this blog as "Cousin/Neighbour" -- he lived (and still lives) a few blocks from us in our old community.)  
• I was able to wear my dressy capris and sandals to the first aunt's funeral... but I think this one will have to be long pants, shoes & socks! Right on cue on the first day of fall, the weather turned cooler, and since then, it's gotten even chillier! 
• I know a lot of people who are positively giddy over the advent of fall this week. I like fall too -- the end of the extreme heat & humidity, the beautiful fall colours (Ontario is one of the best places in the world to see them, I think!) -- but it's a hard/sad time of year for me too. Essentially, it's a season when everything starts to die -- plants, tree leaves, the old year, the light (darkness is already coming way too early for my liking). And way too many people I love have died at this time of year too. 
• Case in point: see above. :(  
• Last year at this time, dh's cousin's brother-in-law died in early October -- followed by his brother/her husband, a day later (!!) and then their mother/her MIL, with a month after them. Yikes!!  
• My grandparents both died in October, almost a year to the day apart from each other -- Grandpa in 1998, Grandma in 1999. And Grandpa died just a few days after I had returned to work after Katie's stillbirth. 
• (*CLUNK!!*) -- That was me, keeling over in shock (lol), after Infertile Phoenix recently pointed her readers to an article on CNN with the message that it's OK to quit doing things -- AND!! quitting infertility treatment is used as one of the examples!!!  
• I've read articles before with the same message (and they're tagged on this blog as "the Q word," lol), but I don't think I have EVER seen a mainstream media article supporting the idea that it's OK to quit infertility treatments. Wow!!     
• (*CLUNK!!* -- again! lol) I have Bloglovin' on my opening set of tabs, even though (apart from one brief blip) it hasn't been working/up for a full month -- since Aug. 23rd (!). Lo and behold, there it was when I turned on my laptop this afternoon!!  I'm enjoying it while it lasts....! 

Elton John, covid, and where have I heard this before?

So -- latest plot twist -- Elton John has covid, and has had to reschedule more shows in the U.S. , just days after he returned to the stage after an almost two-year delay in his tour.  :(  

Now, as I said in my last post, SIL & I have applied for a refund for our tickets for March 13th -- so I don't have a dog in this hunt anymore, so to speak -- but I'm still following the story because I'm curious how it's all going to shake out...! And of course, I want Elton to get better and finish his tour. I hope it's a mild case (sounds like it, so far) and that he has a speedy recovery. 

But with this latest twist, I found myself more thankful than ever that SIL & I had decided to cut our losses and ask for the refund, rather than continue to live with the uncertainty -- will our concert go ahead? will he have to cancel/reschedule (again!)? will the provincial capacity restrictions be lifted in time to allow the concert to go ahead? (And now: will Elton recover from covid in time to make the currently scheduled concert date?)  etc. etc. etc.  And, while I'm disappointed that we won't get to see him as we had planned, it's kind of a relief to have the issue (FINALLY) settled, one way or another. 

And it occurred to me that, hmmm, this felt familiar somehow...? 

Think about it:  what other time in my life have I made a decision (albeit one that was a lot more consequential than whether to keep trying to go to a concert that may or may not happen, in the middle of a global pandemic...!) to cut my losses, exert some control where I could and move forward with my life?  When else have I felt regret that something I had really looked forward to doing wasn't going to happen after all -- but at the same time, relief that the continued uncertainty, the constant feeling of being jerked around by forces outside of my control, was finally at an end?  

Well, if you're a reader of this blog, you know the answer. ;)  

In a similar vein, I haven't told too many people yet that SIL & I aren't going to the concert after all. I imagine that some people, hearing that we've decided to ask for a refund, might be thinking that well, we must not have wanted to see him very much after all, right? That we were SO CLOSE to March 13th;  that if we had just hung on to our tickets a little longer, we could have seen him. That our worries about covid are no big deal, that we should learn to think more positively and we'd achieve what we wanted. That all feels familiar too.  

Or am I stretching the comparison here?  ;)  

Have you ever recognized echoes of your infertility/loss journey and life lessons in other, seemingly unrelated situations, further down the road of your life? 

"Why it's OK to quit"

I get a daily newsletter from the New York Times that features highlights and links to the day's opinion columns. I don't always open it, depending on time and interest, but today's header caught my attention because it encapsulates one of my favourite topics:  "Why it's OK to quit." 

The newsletter was written under Lindsay Crouse's byline, featuring a video she produced on this topic, with a brief introduction in the newsletter. I am not sure if Crouse's words are duplicated somewhere on the NYT site that I could link to -- but I'm going to reproduce them here because I think they are so worth reading. (Infertility is never mentioned, but I think there's a lot here that applies!): 

It hit me over the summer: Everyone was quitting. Certainly, there has been an exodus from jobs. In what’s been called the “Great Resignation,” the number of workers who quit their jobs in April alone broke an all-time U.S. record. But then more people quit in July, and in August, even more.

But people aren’t just quitting jobs. They’re moving cities too. Divorce rates are up. If there was ever a time to shake up your life, 2021 seems to be it.

As you’ll see in today’s Opinion video, which I made with Kirby Ferguson, I find this turn of events fascinating. It’s scary to confront the stigmas around quitting, which are instilled in us from childhood. We’re taught that quitters are losers, who shuffle through life without ever achieving the great breakthrough many of us have been raised to covet, not just by our families, but by movies, songs and general Americana.

 

For our whole lives, our culture has encouraged us to embrace toughness and perseverance at all costs — but those costs can be higher than we realize, especially to ourselves. What if sticking with something for the sake of sticking with it actually causes you more harm than good? What if the smartest thing you can do to achieve success is quit?

As brutal as it’s been, I think the pandemic has forced many of us to reflect — and to realize that our tolerance for change might be higher than we thought. The disruption has helped us see what we were too busy to notice before. Now that we’ve been jostled off the treadmill of our ordinary lives, we have a chance to figure out what we path we really want to be on. And to start down that one instead.

Here's a link to the video Crouse mentions, which is also worth watching.  :)  (The comments are worth a glance too.) 

Odds & ends

• I've been feeling a bit "blah" this week -- and then I heard an ad on the radio proclaiming that this past Monday was "Blue Monday." (Previous posts about Blue Monday & some background on the subject here.) I guess that explains it (or at least some of it...!).  
• The forecast for this upcoming weekend includes yet MORE snow -- for the third weekend in a row. I hope it's not too bad tomorrow -- we have tickets for a lecture and major exhibit opening at the local art gallery where we have a membership, and I've really been looking forward to it. 
• Dh, at the supermarket, picking up a package of diapers for Great-Nephew that we saw on sale at a good price:  "I like buying diapers. It makes me feel... NORMAL.  Like any other dad or grandpa." (This made me smile -- and broke my heart at the same time.)   
• Katy at Chasing Creation has been hosting monthly webinars on a variety of childless-not-by-choice topics. The most recent, "Embracing a Life Without Kids," is aimed at people who are trying to decide if childless living is for them, and features Tia Gendusa of Infertile AF, Jobi Tyson of Tutum Global, and Melissa Jones of Live Childfree. Even if (like me) you've been living childless/free for quite a while, it's worth watching!
• I've sometimes joked about embracing my inner quitter when I walked away from further infertility treatments. (See my posts tagged as "the Q word.")  So I was interested to see the New York Times recently published a feature called "I Quit," featuring 21 stories about people who walked away -- from their job, their band, the presidential race, sex and more. Lots of interesting reading (I'm still working my way through all the articles!). 

"If you don't want to have kids, you don't have to want a career instead"

Jody Day of Gateway Women recently shared an article from Vice on social media that had me nodding along as I read it:  "If You Don’t Want to Have Kids, You Don’t Have to Want a Career Instead."

Many people still equate "childless woman" with "career woman" -- if you don't have children, well, you must have a fabulous career instead, right?  You obviously have more time to throw yourself into your job, work long hours and climb the corporate ladder, right?  (Conversely, if you want a high-powered career, are you really going to have the time to devote to a family? -- This either/or thinking was very common years ago, and still persists in some quarters.)

But what if we don't have children, and don't WANT a high-powered career either?

A few excerpts from the article:

Work can be the thing we do in order to enjoy our free time—it doesn’t have to be a lifelong career, and we don’t always need to be pushing to be the boss. Forget having it “all”—why aren’t women allowed to just have “some,” and be happy with it? ...Perhaps we are finally waking up to the idea that we’ve been conned—that in falling into the optimized lifestyle trap, we’re missing out on the life we actually deserve... 

The biggest barrier women face seems to be the idea that we have inherent worth: that we deserve to be alive, deserve to be happy, even if we are doing “nothing.” [ed note: and even if we don't have children]  [Women's empowerment coach Hueina] Su echoed this idea – saying that If you want to de-optimize your life, it’s critical to believe that you are inherently worthy, and to identify what success and happiness means to you. “We must learn to redefine success for ourselves, instead of letting society and other people dictate how we live our lives,” she said

I've written in the past here about my lukewarm feelings toward my job/career (even before I lost it, lol).  I worked to live, I did not live to work... but I sometimes felt kind of guilty... that I SHOULD want more our of my working life. Supervisors would ask me the obligatory review questions about where I saw myself in five years and what job I wanted to do next... I had no good answers. I was happy doing what I was doing. I had no great desire to manage people, and while I was happy to stretch myself to a certain extent (trying speechwriting & drafting executive correspondence & official messages, after years working on the staff newsletter, for example), making the leap to an entirely different department or area of the company did not interest me in the least.

Losing my job -- at a stage in my life where I was able to take early retirement (a reduced pension, but still a pension nevertheless) -- offered me an "out" -- and I took it -- but I still harboured a lot of guilty feelings:  I was way too young to just retire, I still had a lot to offer (if I could convince a potential employer to look past my age...! -- too young to retire, perhaps, but also too old to be hired for another job...). I should be out there working and adding to our retirement savings for at least another 5-10 years (even though a financial planner assured me & dh that we could afford to do this now), because that's what most people my age were still doing. (So far, he's been right, and it's been working out just fine.)

"What do you do with all that time?" people ask me -- and I feel guilty that I don't have any stories about fabulous trips or meaningful volunteer work or even a full social calendar of luncheons & outings with girlfriends to tell them about. (As one retirement planner pointed out in an article I read, even the fabulously rich will not find themselves travelling 365 days a year... you have to find other ways to fill your time.)  I read, I putter around on this blog & on other social media, I listen to podcasts and watch TV.  Once a week or so, we drop by BIL's house (or they come by here, or we head across the city to visit stepMIL, once every few weeks).  We clean the house and do the laundry and run errands and go to the supermarket and to the mall, and we browse at the local mega-bookstore a couple of times a week. We go out for a simple lunch a couple of times a week, and out for dinner on Saturday nights, a habit we established early on in our marriage.

So the days pass, and while I can't always tell you where the time has gone, I can tell you it always goes by too quickly -- and that I'm seldom bored, and generally happy with my jobless, childless life. When people ask dh "what do you do with your time, now that you're retired?"  he now responds "Whatever I want!"  lol  That usually shuts them up. I think I'm going to adopt it too, lol.

I've had a partially written draft in my draft folder for quite a while now along these same lines. It began a couple of years ago when a childless-not-by-choice/loss mom friend (& past/occasional blogger ;)  ) posted an article on Facebook titled "What if All I Want is a Mediocre Life?"  She confessed that she struggled with the guilt of not being more or doing more or wanting more -- with the idea that "I'm enough."

"Maybe it's the fact that I've been beaten to a bloody pulp by life -- maybe that's why I crave a drama-free, quiet, simple existence," she mused.

I could certainly relate to that... and I'm sure a lot of childless-not-by-choice women can too. Infertility & loss (and the fallout from them) have already provided us with plenty enough drama to last a lifetime, and then some...!

The thought that we need to do more, be more, is something that many people struggle with, whether or not they have kids. But the absence of children in our lives makes some of us feel like we need to do something else, something BIG, as "compensation," to fill that hole in our lives, to prove our worth to society.  Why not climb the corporate ladder (or run off to do missionary work in Africa... etc. etc.) -- after all, we can!

But it's one thing to do something "because we can." Is it something we SHOULD do? Is it something that we WANT to do? Is it something that's right for us personally, for our goals and values?

And by the way, who says that it's a "mediocre life" -- mediocre by whose standards?

I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject!

Here are a couple more great articles on this theme:

• You’re probably searching for a better life—but what if you already have it? 
• Not Leadership Material? Good. The World Needs Followers. (by Susan Cain, author of "Quiet") 
• Making Decisions and Defending Them (This article specifically addresses the issue of childlessness and pressure from others to have children.) 
• You’ll Never Be Famous — And That’s O.K.
• Living an Ordinary Life (The Stirrup Queen's reaction to the story above) 

"The Right Way to Follow Your Passion"

I don't know why (and I apologize in advance to any of you who may feel differently)(how very Canadian of me, lol), but whenever anyone starts blathering on about "finding your passion" and how we (especially when "we" = a corporation) are "passionate about [whatever],"  I habitually find myself rolling my eyes. Maybe because it was something I heard far too often and was compelled to include as a buzzword in far too many documents during my career as a corporate communicator (especially in later years). And of course, part of my resistance no doubt stems from the fact that I "followed my passion" to start a family -- and wound up a complete & utter (and still childless) wreck.  I've come a long way since then, of course, but it's not a time in my life that I'd care to relive anytime soon.

Now, "passion" has its place -- I will admit to being "passionate" myself about certain things (even if I might resist using that particular term, lol). I might even say I am "passionate" about connecting with other childless/free women and sharing what I've learned about this life, and learning more from you in return. :)

Perhaps it's the stoic Scandinavian in me ;)  or the practical Capricorn influence. But I worry that far too many people (and young people in particular) equate "passion" with "career." (Isn't that what we always hear? -- "do what you love and the money will follow"?)  They bounce from one academic program to the next and from job to job in search of that elusive spark of "passion" that will make their life perfect. Or they do find a way to turn their passion into profits, but eventually, the daily grind drains the joy from something they once loved.

I recently shared a meme I found about how the pressure to "find your passion" is messing a lot of people up. (I was also reminded of a story I found once (& shared here), which carried one of my all-time favourite headlines:  "Follow Your Bliss, Right Off the Cliff.") So my interest was piqued when I found this article in the New York Times a few days ago, which addresses some of these topics:  "The Right Way to Follow Your Passion."

I was especially interested in the author's thoughts about when "passion" becomes obsession, and the difference between "harmonious passion" and "obsessive passion."  Does any of this sound familiar??:

Research shows that obsessive passion is associated with burnout, anxiety, depression and unethical conduct. One reason for this is that people who are obsessively passionate tie their self-worth to outcomes that are often outside their control. Being passionate about — or, perhaps better put, a slave to — the achievement of an external result that you cannot control creates a volatile and fragile sense of self. The consequences are often disastrous.

I also appreciated this point, near the end:

Embrace acute failure for chronic gains. If you take the long view and focus on a lifetime of progress instead of point-in-time results, then failure shifts from being something terrible to a source of rich information and an opportunity to grow.

Not everything in this article applies to infertility ;) but there is plenty of food for thought. I'd love to hear yours!

I usually recommend caution when reading the comments ;)  but some of them are instructive too.

"The Year I Learned to Quit"

I found a great article from the "Well" section of the New York Times on a subject that's near & dear to my heart:  the "Q word;"  i.e., learning how to quit.  The author trained diligently to run a marathon at Big Sur this spring, only to have to pull out because of injury and pain. [Boldfaced emphasis in the following sample passages is mine.]

Part of me knew it was time to quit, but the rest of me didn’t want to believe it. All of the articles I found on running websites talked about how to come back from injury and cross that finish line, not how to stay away. 

But I finally gave myself permission to give up — and realize it’s very much in keeping with the rest of my life right now, as I am learning the lost art of quitting. 

I’m not talking about the spectacular #epicfail stories that are so in vogue, with successful entrepreneurs sharing their crash-and-burn experiences as a rite of passage at FailCons around the world. 

I’m talking about quitting before the going gets tough. Leaning out. Not pushing yourself beyond what you think you can do. 

So un-American, right?

She also quit her dream job last year, after giving birth to twins (!):

...when I paused to really pay attention — and stopped busily managing logistics and proverbially running through the pain — I knew it wasn’t right. 

So I quit. 

It pained me to walk away from the team I had built and what we might have achieved together, but the quality and quantity of time I’ve had with my family and for myself since then has far outweighed my regrets.

She goes on to talk about an author who has written about the importance of stillness and rejuvenation throughout history -- cycles of activity followed by rest... "the importance of getting enough sleep and unplugging from our devices." Taking a pause to create space, to think and to listen, instead of rushing through your to-do list, crossing off items along the way.

Infertility treatment -- and when to stop -- is not discussed, but the article resonated with me and very much reminded me of that phase of my life, when I knew I was coming to the end of my quest for motherhood.

Read the whole thing here.

Previous relevant blog posts (now all tagged with the new label "the Q word"...!):

• "Your dream will change... and that's OK" 
• "Follow your bliss, right off a cliff"
• "Mastering the Art of Quitting" (book review) 
• "The Next Happy" (book review) 
• Not a quitter

Not a quitter

A Facebook find.

Related posts:

• "Follow Your Bliss, Right Off the Cliff"
• "Mastering the Art of Quitting"
• Book: "The Next Happy" by Tracey Cleantis

Book: "The Next Happy" by Tracey Cleantis

Disclosure: I first got to "know" Tracey Cleantis through her blog, originally known as La Belette Rouge (and now part of her website). I'm among the Facebook friends she mentions in the acknowledgements, "who endured a year of me asking questions about their grief."  I am quoted in the book, albeit under a different name.

That said...

I loved this book. I knew I probably would, because the subject matter is right up my alley, and because I love Tracey's blog, but it was great to finally have a copy in my hands and to read it for myself.

"The Next Happy" grew out of Tracey's personal story, which in some ways resembles my own. Like me, she wanted a baby -- and like me, she didn't get one, despite 20+ rounds of IUI, four-and-a-half IVFs, a failed adoption, and $100,000 down the drain.  And yet (and also like me), she will tell you that her life today is happier than she ever thought possible.  And that your life can be, too.  

The really great thing about this book is that it isn't just an infertility survival guide or memoir (although Tracey does refer to her own story throughout the book to illustrate some of her points). It's applicable to anyone who has had to let go of a a cherished dream and try to find happiness elsewhere. In its pages we meet people whose dreams included running a hotel in Atlantic City, earning a master's degree, being an entrepreneur, being a martial arts expert, owning a dream home, hosting a talk show (a la Oprah), attending West Point, being in a committed relationship with the seemingly perfect partner, and  becoming a diplomat.  All of them had to let these dreams go.

Tracey refers to herself as "the Dr. Kevorkian of dreams," which sounds kind of ominous -- but the book is highly readable, full of common-sense insights, practical advice, humour and empathy. Writing in a warm, chatty style, Tracey examines topics that include:

• our "never give up" culture,
• the consequences of not giving up,
• when and how to say goodbye to a dream,
• acknowledging just how much this sucks (grief work),
• "the ugly stepsiblings of emotion" (envy, fear, shame) and how to deal with them,
• getting support from family, friends, professionals and others,
• the search for meaning,
• identifying the symbolic meaning of your original dream (what were you really hoping to get, and how else can you do that), and
• getting to your next happy.

Each chapter includes case studies, Tracey's professional observations from the therapy couch, a checklist of self-help questions and suggestions to get you thinking, and (best of all, IMHO, as an avid moviegoer), a "Movie Rx" -- a movie recommendation which reflects the themes of the chapter. Among Tracey's picks: "Silver Linings Playbook," "Ordinary People," "Amadeus" and "It's a Wonderful Life."

"There is always hope for a happy life," Tracey says near the book's end. "It takes work. It isn't easy. But if you believe in it, if you are open to all possibilities, and if you do the work, it does happen." I agree! I so wish that a book like this had been around when I was making the transition from fertility treatments to childless/free living.

This was book #2 that I've read so far in 2015.

(Actually, it's #3, but I'm still working on a review of #2, lol. So to make it easy, we'll call it #2.)

"Mastering the Art of Quitting" by Peg Streep & Alan Bernstein

"Quitting" is a word I have long avoided when talking about my infertility journey. I stopped fertility treatments, I ended them, I left them, I made the decision to stop/end/leave treatment and live without children, I chose to take my life in a different direction. 

Why quibble over "quit"? It's not hard to understand why:  in our achievement & success-oriented culture, quitting has a negative connotation. Nobody wants to be thought of as a quitter -- and certainly not in the infertility & loss community, where people don't seem to want to hear any story except one with a conventionally happy ending (i.e., a living, healthy baby, no matter what the costs or what you had to do to get him/her).

Well, fellow travellers on this less-travelled road, it's time to embrace "the Q word"  ;) (as my sister calls it -- only in her case, she's talking -- or rather, avoiding talking -- about quitting smoking, lol)(as the book says, "the only kind of giving up we collectively accept and support"). And there's a new book to help us do that.

"Mastering the Art of Quitting:  Why it Matters in Life, Love and Work" doesn't mention infertility at all -- but I saw myself and other infertile women I know throughout its pages. I believe its message totally applies to those of us who are at a crossroads in our journey and trying to decide if we should continue treatment or follow another path (and if so, which one).

The book is slightly academic in tone with lots of psychological terminology and studies quoted (I'll admit this did bog me down a bit in spots).  And yet there was something on just about every page that I could relate to or that gave me food for thought. My copy is full of dog-eared pages.

"Quitting not only frees us from the hopeless pursuit of the unattainable but permits us to commit to new and more satisfying goals."  This, in a nutshell, is the message of this book. (You can probably understand why I found it so appealing...!)

So why does quitting have such a bad rap?  "We've all been taught that quitting is a sign of weakness and that quitting is for losers,"  the authors bluntly note. (p. 3)  Persistence and positive thinking, we are told from the time we are children, are the keys to success. Moreover, the authors demonstrate that human beings are hard wired to persist in pursuit of a goal -- even when the goal is unreachable or no longer satisfying.

The book not only promotes quitting as a valid option, it discusses why and how we should quit when something is not working for us. (The trick is to disengage from old goals while setting new ones.)  It includes helpful quizzes and tips to help us make better decisions and to set and pursue new goals in a more realistic way. 

If you are struggling with decisions about whether to stay on your current path or take a completely different direction in your life, this book would be an excellent resource. 

This was book #11 that I've read so far this year.

"Follow Your Bliss, Right Off the Cliff"

One of my favourite albums of all time is the self-titled debut album by the band Boston -- still one of the top-selling debut albums of all time. It came out when I was 15 in 1976 and I played it over and over and over again. I have it on vinyl, cassette and CD, and if & when I finally cave and get an iPod, I'm sure it will be one of the first pieces of music I buy. I still crank up the radio whenever a Boston song comes on the classic rock station dh & I like to listen to, and I love to sing along. The guitars! The clear, soaring vocals (RIP, Brad Delp)! The harmonies!

One of the lines I love, in one of the songs I love, "Long Time" (see video clip at the top of this post) goes: "I gotta keep on chasing that dream, though I may never find it... I'm always just behind it..." 

OK, back to the present, lol. There is a point to my rambling... the song just came to mind when I found a New York Times article last night about a couple of people who kept on chasing their dreams (careerwise) -- and lost their shirts in the process. The title (love it!): Follow Your Bliss, Right Off the Cliff.

As always, I saw some parallels to the ALI world that I think are worth reflecting on. Because, in infertility -- as in most aspects of life -- we are constantly urged to keep on chasing that dream -- to "go for it!"  Follow your passion! Don't give up!  Even when we're financially, physically, emotionally and mentally exhausted.

But tell me -- does any of this sound familiar?

One of the story subjects chucked aside her career as a fashion editor to open a high-end boutique with her sister in Los Angeles. It lasted just two years, and she's only just emerged from several years of financial struggle. 

...even when the future looked grim, Ms. Tyree hung on. [emphasis mine] In fact, she dug in. She bought more inventory for the racks and threw celebrity-fueled parties at the store to generate buzz.
      

“Your gut says this could be a problem, but your head overrides it because you have just put in this huge investment,” she said. “You are hanging on to not just the dream, but you are hanging on to the sweat equity and what you put into it financially.”

The article points out that it's human nature not to want to walk away, especially when you've invested so much.

Another story subject once owned five shoes stores in Los Angeles.

"I personalized the outcome to a degree that it was unhealthy,” he said. “I thought failure was total and permanent — and success stamped me as a worthwhile business person.”

      

That’s a normal reaction, says Dr. Richard Peterson, a psychiatrist and managing director for the New York-based financial consultancy MarketPsych. “There is a part of the brain called the anterior insula, and that is where we process losses,” he said. “It creates a physical sensation of pain, and it also creates a sensation of disgust.”

      

...to avoid the pain, Dr. Peterson said, we hope.

      

...“We overestimate our ability to control outcomes that have some element of chance” and we “tend to overestimate the extent to which good things are going to happen, especially to us.” 

For both Ms. Tyree and Mr. Dearing, hope — and money — finally ran out.

...“I thought I had one shot to be successful,” he said. “I had no idea that my career — or anybody’s career — is actually a multiround process and that you had many, many at-bats.”

I wouldn't interpret this to mean "keep batting till you hit that home run"... rather that there are many, many ways that you can build a great career, or lead a fulfilling life --which may or may not include children. There is no one right path or answer, and sometimes you have to hit a few strikes before you get that home run. (Or even a walk to first base.)(Or maybe switch to soccer or hockey.)(OK, enough with the sports metaphors, lol.)  

...“suffering comes from being attached to the outcomes.”

      

As paradoxical as it sounds, he said, “If you stop worrying about the outcomes, you will achieve a better outcome.”

(In ALI-speak, I don't think this means that if we "stop trying & relax" we'll get pregnant.)      

And if you asked either of them if they had any lingering pangs about those earlier, dashed dreams, the answer, even with all that money lost, would be no. So, pursue your life dream, whatever it is, but with caution. Or at least a cushion of savings.

And a plan B (or even C) in your back pocket. ; )

I'd encourage you to read the whole article... and then tell me what you think!

"Your dream will change... and that's okay"

If you haven't already, I urge you to read or watch Conan O'Brien's commencement address at Dartmouth from earlier this week. It's funny to read & even funnier to watch, if you have 25 minutes to spare/kill/waste. But he winds up with a serious message, and as I thought about it in relation to my own life, my pursuit of a family & my ultimate decision to remain childfree, I could recognize something of myself in his words.

Some excerpts:

In 2000, I told graduates "Don't be afraid to fail." Well now I'm here to tell you that, though you should not fear failure, you should do your very best to avoid it. Nietzsche famously said "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger." But what he failed to stress is that it almost kills you. Disappointment stings and, for driven, successful people like yourselves it is disorienting. What Nietzsche should have said is "Whatever doesn't kill you, makes you watch a lot of Cartoon Network and drink mid-price Chardonnay at 11 in the morning."

Now, by definition, Commencement speakers at an Ivy League college are considered successful. But a little over a year ago, I experienced a profound and very public disappointment. I did not get what I wanted, and I left a system that had nurtured and helped define me for the better part of 17 years...

But then something spectacular happened. Fogbound, with no compass, and adrift, I started trying things... and guess what: with the exception of the blue leather suit, it was the most satisfying and fascinating year of my professional life. To this day I still don't understand exactly what happened, but I have never had more fun, been more challenged—and this is important—had more conviction about what I was doing.

How could this be true? Well, it's simple: There are few things more liberating in this life than having your worst fear realized... Your path at 22 will not necessarily be your path at 32 or 42. One's dream is constantly evolving, rising and falling, changing course....

But the point is this : It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique. It's not easy, but if you accept your misfortune and handle it right, your perceived failure can become a catalyst for profound re-invention.

So, at the age of 47, after 25 years of obsessively pursuing my dream, that dream changed. For decades, in show business, the ultimate goal of every comedian was to host The Tonight Show. It was the Holy Grail, and like many people I thought that achieving that goal would define me as successful. But that is not true. No specific job or career goal defines me, and it should not define you. In 2000—in 2000—I told graduates to not be afraid to fail, and I still believe that. But today I tell you that whether you fear it or not, disappointment will come. The beauty is that through disappointment you can gain clarity, and with clarity comes conviction and true originality.

Many of you here today are getting your diploma at this Ivy League school because you have committed yourself to a dream and worked hard to achieve it. And there is no greater cliché in a commencement address than "follow your dream." Well I am here to tell you that whatever you think your dream is now, it will probably change. And that's okay....

Not that I will ever consider losing Katie a good thing... but yes, it most certainly was a catalyst in my life, and nothing has been the same since then. Sometimes that's been good, sometimes it's been bad. But I survived. I'm still here.

My dreams today at 50 are different than they were when I was 20, or 30, or even 40. (Sometimes, I'm still trying to figure out what they are.) But as the guy said, that's okay. Thanks, Conan. : )