Our theme for the month of June is “spirits.”
A little over a year ago, I planned to spend my Saturday afternoon at my best friend’s child’s first birthday party. Unfortunately, plans quickly got derailed, as I got too close to the side of my apartment building, got my car door on the brick, did NOT call a tow truck… and bent my quarter panel in an attempt to back my car up. Shocked and frazzled, I sent an apologetic text that I couldn’t make it. I then spent the day at a local bookstore buying a depressing, comfort book for some much needed serotonin. That book was I Who Have Never Known Men, which, apparently, is just my new brand, since this is the fourth time I’m writing about this on tpc.
A quick summary is that there are forty women trapped in a bunker; none of them are sure how they got there. The main character is a child, without a name, and she has no memories of another world. Throughout the book, she’s filled with curiosity and is dying to know what the other women’s lives were like. When the guards mysteriously disappear, she goes on a desperate search for signs of human civilization, eager to figure out what she’d been missing out on.
Reading this book filled me with anxiety. It was clear that the child SO badly wanted to experience ordinary human life: jobs, family, and of course, men. She spent her whole life searching, and unfortunately, she never finds what she is looking for. Spoiler alert: she ends up dying alone. Seeing earnest effort lead to nothing is the worst form of heartbreak, even in fiction.
And yet, as I spent the next week recovering from my grief (from the book, not the car), I started to reflect on a scene at the end of the book that gave me unexpected hope, despite what is undeniably a very sad ending.
The child is all alone, watching her body fall apart, and she knows she is about to die. She reflects on the women she’s spent a long time being jealous of, and it hits her that nearly all of them spoke about heartbreak. Some had estranged kids, stressful jobs, and difficult marriages. For the first time, she wonders if her life would be joyful if she got the human experience she’d been searching for. She goes on to realize that, in her own life, she has no regrets. She’s walked across every desert searching for civilization; she’s searched for knowledge as far as she could. Now, as she is about to die, she has the revelation that she made the most of life available to her.
This gratitude struck me as profound and made me question how I view success. Although obviously our lives are different, I too often feel lost, as though I’m searching for the true “adult human experience.” I spend a lot of time chasing what I think would make my life better, and after reading I sat back and wondered: if I had the dream marriage, dream house, and dream job, would I actually be happy?
That’s when I put myself into the shoes of the child. I pictured myself growing old, being on a hospital bed, and reflecting on my life. I can imagine myself saying, “Life didn’t go the way I expected, and I didn’t get everything I wanted; but what I do know is that I did everything in my power to take advantage of it.”
Somehow, I find that so comforting. There’s so much unpredictability and uncertainty in the world, and the list of things I don’t have control over is endless. Yet, I do know that I can control my curiosity, hunger for knowledge, and search for meaning: the spirit of the child. And maybe that’s enough.
Michelle Ferdinands (’22) graduated from Calvin University with degrees in mathematics and computer science. She lives in Kansas City and works as a software engineer. She loves to run and read, and she’s always up for an adventure.
