Reflecting Back

These women’s stories had changed much, much more than I ever expected. Hearing the new ways women explained their lives and choices today made them alive for me once again, not simply subjects with paper transcripts. It is no secret that life does not always turn out as planned, and in many ways, this reality is what characterizes our human existence. I realized that it was in the telling and retelling of their stories that each woman recasts her humanity. That is to say, their own rewriting of their master plan, especially their agenda to resequence children and marriage, shows the very inconsistencies and changes that bring them once again to life. How they have adapted and integrated, making sense of less than tidy situations, is what I find most compelling. Humanness is best captured by life’s vicissitudes and the way in which one navigates one’s path through them. It is the humanity of these women’s stories that I hope that I have conveyed not only in this epilogue, but also in the book as a whole. The women you have met here are not simply quotes and trends, but part of the process of making unexpected and complicated choices as women, of which it is my job to make sense and fit into a larger picture.