Dear me, 

If anything, you had more fun reading your book and finding quotes than writing this letter the day that it’s due. Upon finding too many quotes and making connections, you found that you’re really good at finding quotes that relate to life in the most obscure books that have nothing in common with the world you live in. A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge tells the tale of Neverfell, a girl with no recollection of her past. The world of Caverna, an ever-changing matrix of spindling tunnels deep underground, separated from the lands above. The enigma of a world, isolated to protect its secrets of infatuating perfumes, intoxicating wines, majestic cheeses, and multitudes of secrets, hold people who can only show emotions through ‘faces’ that they have learned. However, unlike the rest, Neverfell has a unique face. Unlike those around her, her face reflects her emotions, making her, a young naive girl, the most fascinating and feared in the realm of Caverna. Similarly to Neverfell, you cannot hide your feelings that are displayed for all to see; so you put on a mask, hiding what you want to bury underneath. While (and after) reading Hardigne’s book, connections of identity, happiness, change, and life can be found within, showing that although it may be fiction, Neverfell’s world is just as real as the one outside of the mask. 

What is the mask you wonder? Why do we act differently when we’re with different people? Why do we hide feelings from others? Is it even others we’re trying to hide our feelings from? Or is it ourselves? Unlike in our world, people in Caverna must be taught how to show emotions. Within Caverna’s hierarchy, the lowest of the low, drudges, are only taught faces of happiness, even though they’re treated like slaves. If drudges were taught ‘unhappy faces’ “[t]hey would grow up considering that they might be unhappy. They might look around and see unhappiness on one another’s faces, and their own unhappiness would grow. If they wear a happy face for long enough… they are much more likely to believe in the end that they really are happy. And there’s no real difference between being happy and believing you are happy is there?” (Hardinge 297). Well, we all hide under a mask, whether we know it or not. We all pretend to be happy. Maybe for others’ sake, maybe for our own. Everyone wants to find happiness and part of that comes with finding purpose. And yet, we all hide and cower under false happiness. But why? Do we want to convince others that we’re happy? Or do we want to convince ourselves that we’re happy? Ask yourself: are you truly happy or are you hiding under the mask of believing that you are?

Who are you? What defines you? How would you describe yourself? You need to ask yourself these questions to write a profile for a resume. Ha! Yes, that is true, but asking yourself those questions will allow you to ask yourself if you are the person you want to be and answer that with a confident yes. Unlike Neverfell, you don’t have memories missing, however, you both want to know who you are. “‘I can’t!’ [Neverfell] exploded. ‘I can’t go on like this forever! I feel like I’m running around with a hole in the back of my head, with things falling out… If I don’t find out who I am, then I’ll always be oh-don’t-mind-Neverfell-she’s-a-bit-mad, and nothing will ever make any sense. I have to know Master Childersin! I want to know’” (Hardinge 115). Everyone’s trying to figure out who they are. Sometimes you (from the past, past you cannot tell the future although that’d be nice) feel like you’ve found purpose while other times you’re lost and end up chasing your tail around and around and around like a lost puppy. We all strive to find fulfillment and meaning, but we all seem to live in a bubble at times, not realizing the impact that we have on our future or others’. Unlike Neverfell, there are some things that you’d just like to forget; like hit an ‘undo’ button and start over, or wake up from an awful dream. But each time, you know deep down that it’s good that you remember the bad things in life, for they are all an opportunity to learn and grow. You need to get out of the bubble and help others get out of theirs because if you don’t, you’re just going through the motions of life, but that’s not living.  

What’s influencing your life? How about the world you live in? What will you do in life? What cascade of events will occur after each choice you make? Will you even know the impact of one tiny choice? Your choices are like boxes and you never know what will be inside them; whether they hold a cobra or a full ride to college. And you never know what will happen after each box you open, but what keeps you opening box after box after box? “What’s wrong with me? Why didn’t I take the cake? [I didn’t take the cake] Because I knew I needed a miracle to get out of all this alive. Cake is nice, but it isn’t a miracle. And so I had to hope that the whole box game wasn’t a cruel joke with no right answers and maybe, just maybe, one of those boxes had a miracle in it, a way out. I just had to hope” (Hardinge 162). When we make choices we know are bad ones, we hope that that they might have a chance of having a good outcome. So we keep opening boxes, hoping that maybe the bad things in life won’t jump out at us like a jack-in-the-box. Our curiosity and hope that something good, or even a miracle, will happen are what keeps us opening boxes. It’s hard to explain, but we’re all hoping for a miracle of some sort; hoping that maybe the outcome will go in the way we want and maybe we’ll finally be in control. We hope that from the choices we make, that we’ll find happiness; find out who we are and what we see in the mirror is who we want to see. We hope that magically that everything will go right. We think and hope that we are in control of all that goes on around us, but what we don’t realize most of the time is that the only thing we really have control over is ourselves and who we become. 

What is the meaning of life? What is our purpose? Who will we become? What is hidden in the unknown? Life is the unknown. Nobody can tell the future and nobody can change the past. The course of life is ever-changing, much like the underground world of Caverna itself. “Cavern is terrifying. This is love, not liking. You can fear her, but she is all you can think about” (Hardinge 248). There is a love/hate relationship that we have with life. We fear the unknown of what is to come. We let bad memories fester in our hearts, making us yearn to click pause on the space-time continuum and just breathe. We’re terrified of what we can’t control, the ‘what comes next’ or ‘what will happen.’ We fixate on that and let it hinder what is truly important in life. We wonder why people who we thought we were close with all of the sudden abandon us like we were nothing. We dwell on the unknown factors of what has happened and what will happen rather than look around and see what is happening. The world is changing constantly. Change in everything from who you talk to, to what is being said from day-to-day. Change is the unknown of what will happen, but “[c]hange is necessary and, deny it as we may, in the end, change is always inevitable” (Hardinge 323). Change is inevitable. Every choice that is made is a change in our, and others, lives. It redirects our path, our future. Think of it like a flow chart, or a cascade of events. Each choice that is made is a change in the world. Change is hard to overcome, however, whether it be a friend who decides that you’re not good enough or a prominent figure in your life that is suddenly gone from the world. To overcome the hardships that change throws at us unexpectedly, you must have the courage to continue on. Courage to continue on is a driving factor in the game of life. “‘A little courage now is all it takes,’ Maxum [Childersin] added kindly. ‘If you can learn to stomach what has passed without running away from it, nothing else you can do will be as hard. Murder is like romance. It is only our first that overwhelms us. Next time it will be easier…” (Hardinge 352-353). Now, don’t go and commit murder or anything, I highly suggest against it, but having courage and confidence to keep forging on instead of running away from difficult times will tell you that you are stronger than you may think. If you keep facing things head-on, things will be easier in the long run, even if it overwhelms you at first. Remind yourself that you have the courage to keep going, now do it with confidence. You have more in you than you think. 

I did not mean for this to become a five-page long inspirational essay as to why life is hard, so I’m going to try and keep this short ‘n’ sweet. Break out of your bubble, your mask, your fear and live your life to the fullest, because you only have one. Remember to take joy in who you are and allow your emotions to be seen because they’re a beautiful array of light and dark, highs and lows. Remember that through finding and connecting to quotes and reading Frances Hardinge’s book A Face Like Glass that life is an ever-changing enigma, complex with boxes of cobras and cake. Each choice you make impacts the world around you that is full of unknown secrets that you have yet to find out. Who you are and who you want to be, that depends on if you decide to open the right labeled boxes. The unlabeled boxes you’re going to have to overcome with the confidence and courage that I know that’s there. You just have to see it too. With each obstacle that the matrix of life throws at you, each stone, know that you will make it through. Know that you decide what defines you. You are in control of whether you are going to go on an adventure to find happiness or if you’re going to just live in a bubble and let yourself believe that you are happy. But that choice, that box, that’s on you to decide.