An Unholy Mess

Well, thirty's about time to make up your mind

The Sunday Letter #36

In the fall of 2014, I was a first-year university student convinced I was going to become a psychologist.

My intro to human behaviour class took place every Tuesday and Thursday morning, with over 300 students packing themselves into a massive auditorium everyday, crammed into the hard plastic seats with tiny armrests. 

It didn't take long for me to realize I was not well-suited to the hard sciences of the brain; I was fascinated by human behaviour, but in more of a political sense than a psychological one. 

I remained in the class, but felt my passion for the topic waning. That is, until we were offered a chance to participate in a psychology experiment in order to earn extra credit. We signed up for various focus groups, earning an extra 5% to our final grade with each group interview we attended.

Along with ten other first-year students, I arrived at the dinghy conference room reserved for upper year students. A sign on the door instructed us to knock first, so as not to disrupt the work. One of us stepped forward to knock, tenderly, and we stepped through the door.

*

Yesterday we were having brunch when a climate protest marched past the window. I felt shame, suddenly, for not realizing there was a protest that day, despite being constantly online, observing the horrors of the world.

Afterwards, we went to visit my grandma in her new care home. Her memory continues to fade, such that she can zip in and out of decades in the span of one conversation. I sense she feels she loves me while not always sure which part of her long life I am tethered to. She asks me how old she is, how she ended up here.

She asks, again and again, why we don’t have children yet. We laugh, and we tell her: maybe one day, grandma. In the far, far future. Not yet, not right now.

*

It was November 1, 2014, the day after Halloween, and as we settled into the conference room, the interviewers instructed us to take some leftover candy. My fellow students eagerly reached out for the free treats, but I knew better: If you ever find yourself in a social experiment, never take the candy.

The interview began. We’re here today just to ask you about your future plans to have children, or remain childfree. If we can just go around in a circle…

There it is, I thought to myself. 

Surely, the true purpose of this experiment was to test a hypothetical connection between those of us who took the candy and our perspective on having children. Despite their repeated urging to take the candy, I resisted, maintaining eye contact so as to signal, I’m on to your game.

The group, a mix of ages, genders, and perspectives, had a lively discussion, though I was surprised that it veered heavily towards pro-having children. I didn’t necessarily have strong opinions either way at only 19 years of age, but I found some of the questions to be misleading. For instance, they asked whether we were worried about who would take care of us if we didn’t have children, or if we worried that our future lives might be empty without them. 

In indignation, I found myself the only person heavily defending the argument for not having children, if only because at this point I was so steadfast in my refusal to take the candy. I argued that life could be fulfilling for people no matter which path it took. Perhaps I was flailing, panicking, yet resolute in this refusal.

It’s a flailing panic I still sometimes feel, when put on the spot or pressured. In-laws, strangers, the expectations that follow a young woman who doesn’t quite know who she wants to be yet. At 28 I want to tell my younger self: I still don’t.

*

Eventually the interview ended, and the students thanked us for our time. They offered us the candy in one last ditch effort to get us to cave, unconvincingly assuring us that it really was free for the taking, and a few stragglers reached out for one more piece. In my memory, I was the only one that didn’t take any, but that could be revisionist history.

I left the room, steadfast in my rigidity, until I got down the hall and realized maybe they hadn’t been lying about the treats as part of an elaborate experiment after all. I sighed, wishing I’d just taken the candy instead.

This week’s recommendations

I watched The Philadelphia Story (dir. George Cukor, 1940), which I adored and promptly rewatched [redacted] more times. Bring back sexy, moody movie lighting! Katharine Hepburn’s whipsmart delivery is so fiery, yet fragile, that I’m struggling to think of a contemporary actress that could come close to what she does in this film. Her chemistry with James Stewart (see below) had me swooning—and they’re not even each other’s main love interests in the film!

“You made up your mind awfully young, it seems to me.”

“Well, thirty’s about time to make up your mind.”

“The time to make up your mind about people…is never.”

I was moved by this 2012 video about plant neurobiology and the efforts plants go through to grow.

This illustrious profile of Chaka Khan by Ann Friedman for The Gentlewoman: “I’m just a woman.”

From Dirt, on how the films Dogtooth and Aftersun are about going home: “I’m a lot of things but I’m not home, not yet.”

Revisiting words from Toni Morrison: “This is precisely the time when artists go to work—not when everything is fine, but in times of dread.”

This diva, who stormed the field of a college football game last week. She left kicking and screaming, but not before capturing the hearts of thousands. Let her speak!