I hope we’ll meet again in the next life

“What do you think happens after we die?” I whispered, wrapping the blanket around me tightly, as if to shut myself off from the world.

“I don’t know. But what I do know is that in the next life, I hope we end up as brother and sister again.”

I can barely see my older sister’s face as pale moonlight pours into the bedroom. But in this brief existential exchange, my 8-year-old self came to realize that neither of us could have ever made it alone in that volatile household.

This summer, I finally got the chance to see “Past Lives” in theaters. By finally, I mean my friends and I somehow managed to get plans out of the group chat and all the way to Emeryville to see this elusive, indie showing (an incredible feat for three unemployed best friends). And god damn, was it an incredible experience.

Without spoiling too much, “Past Lives” introduces us to the only three characters we’ll ever need to know: Nora (Greta Lee), Miss Girl and the main protagonist; Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), Nora’s sexy childhood sweetheart; and, um —  Arthur (John Magaro), the insignificant husband who gets in the way — need I say more? We first meet the cast as three strangers in a bar, left to guess the relationships between them, and brilliantly, the rest of the movie has us doing the same until the very end. 

“Past Lives” introduces the Korean concept of in-yeon (인연). Simply put, in-yeon is what brings people together: it is the strands of fate between each and every one of us, transcending time and space. Each small interaction we share, no matter how insignificant, is in-yeon. With every subsequent brush of fate comes another layer of in-yeon. 

How beautiful is that — that in each and every life, the connections and relationships we form are not lost, but rather contribute to something much bigger than us? Perhaps it is in-yeon that my sister and I became siblings in this life — and perhaps it is in-yeon that you are reading this right now.

Despite appearances, I am an incredibly sentimental person. As someone who has experienced loss again and again, not knowing how much time I’ll have with the people I love and care about, I want to believe that there is something more to these fleeting moments we have together. I need to believe — because it’s too hard to live without doing so. Maybe it’s just my mental illness speaking, but it would be wonderful if there were no more goodbyes, just “see-you-later”s, because there are so many people I would want to meet again, if not in this life, then the next. 

There are so many things left unsaid: “I want to tell you about my day — about my week!” I want to tell you about all the little things that don’t even matter in the grand scheme of things, because — of all else — I just want to talk to you again. 

But “Past Lives” has taught me a valuable lesson: that there is so much said in what is left unsaid. “Past Lives” does this brilliantly in the awkward silences in between conversations, the nervous hand movements and uncomfortably long shots. 

So, I hope that you understand that even without it being explicitly said, that I still care about you and love you — in this life and in every other.

I am still struggling with loss and grief, but I’ve come a long way. There’s so much I still don’t know, but what I do know is that we can’t just leave our lives entirely up to fate — we’ve got to take them into our own hands and forge our own futures. Sure, we can’t change the past, but we can change how we let it affect us. 

I have lived and died an innumerable amount of times by now. I don’t remember all too well whom I used to be, but what I do know is that I want to live to be a better person today and every other day of my life. In the many lives I have lived, and in the lives I will continue to live, I hope that the people I cherish will continue to come back into this life.

Because who are we if not an accumulation of all the people we have ever met in our lifetimes?

Man Truong is a senior writing on reflections made in life. He makes sense of a world full of different beliefs and philosophies in his column, “Lessons Learned,” which runs every other Monday.