past lives
In high school I would have panic attacks every once in a while when I thought about the fact that my fate was not decided, that in fact there were endless branches of possibility all dependent on little branches of choice before them, and that those choices were all up to me. I hated this so much. It made me hyperventilate. I rocked back and forth on my bedroom floor. I scratched at the carpet. I prayed for a god I could believe in to come save me from this burden.
I would stare at one of the many nail polish stains on the beige carpet and wait for the panic to subside. It never fully did but I got better at ignoring it when it threatened to spill over. The closest word in the English language that can describe my current derivative version of that panic is nostalgia.
I’ve made hundreds of choices. I’ve turned my back on countless paths. I have left them for some other version of me to walk. I can only hope that in my version of life I have chosen correctly enough to be happy.
Other lives I might have led whip past me or come tap me on the shoulder and I miss them like old lovers I can no longer speak to.
Watching Past Lives was like bringing those other lives to their knees in front of me. If you’ve ever had someone kneel in front of you you know it’s already too late. To kneel in desperation is a futile exercise. You’ve already chosen your fate. Despite its futility it hurts as much as anything could.
An old lover is sitting across from you in a crowded room. For a moment you have one foot in another life. You can feel a different future. And then you can say goodbye all over again.
The only thing worse than making a choice is feeling like for just a moment you have to make it again. But the person sitting across from you is not of this world anymore, is no longer a viable option. Every glance at your phone, every interruption from the server, and the circle sitting outside of time fractures just a little more. You remember something important: you’ve made too many choices. What can you say when too many choices have been made?
Another life gets on its knees in front of you. You know it could have been perfect or it wouldn’t have gotten to this point. But some missteps, some correct ones, some tiny fractures in the branches, and we are where we are.
There is nothing left to say; but this heavy nostalgia, this desperation to stay suspended in this circle outside of time, keeps you from leaving. Keeps you wanting to get on your knees too. But you don’t; it would be a futile exercise.
So you soak in the second ending. You feel for a moment like the other version of yourself that gets the thing on its knees before you. You’ve never wanted something so badly; something has never felt so right. But you let it go because you already have. You say goodbye and your heart breaks all over again and you go back to where your choices have led you.
But for just a minute you went back in time. You were on your knees on your carpet again and you saw more than one perfect option.
I picture the other me that gets the other version of the happy ending, the me that’s not of this world. I figure we feel the same way.
