Bernadette Fox v. Cheryl Strayed, or Found & Lost vs. Lost & Found

Where'd You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple and Wild by Cheryl Strayed: these books are almost polar opposites. Most of the women I know are in the Strayed camp or the Bernadette camp.

In Wild, Cheryl Strayed recovers from a childhood filled with poverty, her mother's death, a stale marriage and drug use as she hikes the Pacific Coast Trail. Bernadette was a genius architect who loses her mojo when fate kicks her in the shins a few times. She becomes a hermit and hides in her version of the Petit Trianon (aka an Airstream trailer) in her backyard. Strayed was lost and becomes found. Bernadette was found, then became lost and has to find herself again.

"Strayed was too whiny. I couldn't get past the first chapter," said one friend who previously loved her job but is now a full-time parent. She dressed up as Bernadette for Halloween one year, complete with the fishing vest and pockets full of passports.

Or, "I loved Wild, but I haven't gotten around to reading Bernadette yet. I know I am supposed to read it..." said another friend who wandered through her twenties.

While I wasn't a genius architect, I did have my shit together when I was in my twenties. I liked my job, I had a nice boyfriend who then became my husband. I went to graduate school and was finding more and more interesting work to.

Then fate came along and kicked me in the shins a few times. My first child died, and my brother had problems with his major mental illness. Jack's job required overnight and weekend work, and I was traveling three or four days a week to Los Angeles. While the work was interesting, I wanted to have a baby and traveling that much was not compatible with motherhood. So I quit my job and became a full-time parent. Claire Adele came along and was a colicky infant. The Boy was born three years later, and then we moved to Seattle.

Somewhere along the way, my hopes and dreams got packed up in a box and put on a high shelf in the closet. I completely identify with Bernadette, who ends up passed out on a couch in a pharmacy in the middle of downtown Seattle in the of the day. I even have my own version of a Petit Trianon in my backyard (not that I am complaining.) "You will become a menace to society if you don't create," one of Bernadette's friends warns her. I have seen a few middle-aged friends implode from lack of meaningful work, and I fear that might happen to me. I am Bernadette.

I started rereading Wild, and I have much more empathy from Strayed now that I've thought about her journey in terms of lost and found. Lost is lost, no matter when it happens. And that is hard.