i learned of that someone i knew peripherally, an acquaintance my sister’s age (three years younger than me) passed away in august. i was devastated for him, and for his family, but also more abstractly for the life that he could have lived. i reflected on all the things i’ve done since being 22, all the versions of myself that i have grown into and out of, and mourned all of those things for him.
a few days later i watched past lives for the first time, a film about how love is both a choice and not a choice. the main character, nora, grew up in korea before moving to canada and later the US. at 24, she gets a skype call from a childhood friend, hae sung, who she has not seen since immigrating at age 12. despite their distance — nora in new york city and hae sung in korea — they develop (though never articulate) feelings for one another. still trying to carve out her identity in the states, nora decides to stop talking to hae sung. when they reconnect a second time it is twelve years later; hae sung has flown to the US to see nora, who has now been married for seven years. nora and hae sung’s feelings for one another are confusing and difficult, but very, very real. they talk about this, but mostly, they don’t talk about it, not unlike marianne and connell in sally rooney’s normal people, characters you wish you could shake into the type of honest communication we all think we have, but more often lack the courage to. in the end, hae sung returns to korea. nora remains in new york city.
when they leave each other a second time, it is with a heavy sadness but not with regret. in their time apart, nora and hae sung both lived complex lives — joyful and painful and exciting and mundane. instead, they mourn what could have been, a very near universe in which things worked out differently, one in which they mourned for this life instead.
(among other things) i left feeling compelled to honor the experiences i have had; like focusing too much on the grief would be a disservice to the joy, and like focusing too much on the joy, a disservice to the grief. there is sadness in the overwhelming loss my community has experienced this year; but there was joy in the life we did have together, however short.
Abby Haley 