Past Lives: Healing Childhood Wounds and Paper Cuts

(Discussion about the movie Past Lives that may include mild spoilers about overall themes. If you haven’t seen it, please do!)

I’m a bit late to the party when discussing the film Past Lives. But a truly good movie endures, right? And this one is a study in elegance and restraint in storytelling. No major plot twists or dramatic outbursts, yet I was just as pulled into the story as I could be.

I held onto every word, spoken in both English and Korean with English subtitles. I also relished in the restraint when I expected the characters to speak but they didn’t, and the silence was more effective.

All those nuanced moments, emotions portrayed by expert actors, and a minimalist script, led up to the most perfect ending that just might heal a tiny part of your heart. At least, it did mine.

Toward the beginning, we see two childhood friends standing in front of a diverging path on their way home from school. One child goes to the right and the other to the left. It means nothing, yet you sense it will come to mean everything. The story is full of “what ifs” and, hailing back to the song by Sting, “If you love someone, set them free.”

I thought about my own childhood again and about the millions of possible events, timelines, and outcomes that can befall a person. All the unresolved people in my life. You know—people coming and going, entering and exiting, making brief appearances, never to be seen again.

Sometimes these losses feel like gaping holes. Other times, they’re just paper cuts that never quite heal.

Maybe that’s why social media platforms like Facebook really took off. Finally, we could revisit some of the unresolved people in our lives. Then we’d get that modicum of satisfaction knowing they turned out OK, and we’d let them know we did, too.

Then there’s the occasional unresolved person with no online presence. What then?

We’re left wondering.

Past Lives got me thinking about the very first love note I received.

One morning in third grade, I found a surprise on my chair: one of those Mason jar mugs filled with peanut M&Ms. A note was taped to the top with “To Shelli” in Elizabethan-looking cursive.   

At first, I was stunned, delighted, and mystified. Who could it be from? A hint of embarrassment followed. I hid the present under my desk, not wanting to be ridiculed by other students.

As class began, I covertly opened the note. Short and sweet, but no signature. A secret admirer! I scanned the classroom and my eyes landed on a grinning boy, who quickly looked away. My friend, Christian.

It was a friendship note, but I figured with all the secrecy and surprise, he must’ve had a crush on me. This was good news because I had a crush on him, too.

At recess, he couldn’t contain the secret. He found me and asked if I got his present. I said I did, smiled awkwardly, and thanked him. He was quite proud of himself, and I marveled at his boldness. I don’t remember what I did next, only how I felt: uneasy, awkward, and purely giddy. Never had a boy done something so nice for me, and I wasn’t sure what to do.

In addition to being sweet and cute as a button, Christian was goofy and cool and high-energy. He was the first boy in class who could do the Moonwalk. In fact, he demonstrated it the day after Michael Jackson first performed it on live TV. We were all dazzled.

My school had an excellent choir, and Christian could sing. He had an infectious laugh and an ever-so-slight lisp. And he always chose me when we played “Heads Up, Seven Up.”

Christian is an unresolved person in my life, if ever there was one, so I did the obvious next step and googled him. His name is somewhat common, so I added a few other defining keywords. Sure enough, the first image to pop up on my screen was him. I never forget a face.

As an aside, one of my lesser-known (and even lesser-useful) talents is the ability to remember faces, even if decades have passed. I’m a super-recognizer. It’s a thing. Names, I’m not so good with, but faces are my specialty.

Seeing the photo filled me with a host of fond memories.  

Alas, my cyberstalking was curtailed. He only had one social media profile—a former Twitter account with a single post from 10 years ago. “Working on starting a family” and something about building his B2C marketing portfolio. 

Even as a third grader, I was apprised of the rules of nostalgia. Keeping your first love note was sound wisdom, so I did. But over the years, I lost track of it. Thought it was long gone. While writing this blog post, I thought about how fun it would be to find it again.

Folks, every time I embark on a quest that benefits a writing project, the weather gods raise their sails. I found the note. And here it is, melting my heart as much today as it did back then.

And to Celine Song, the writer and director of Past Lives, how did you so skillfully rend my heart in two? I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say the end left me sobbing.

People, unresolved or otherwise, are mirrors of ourselves, of our past lives. Sometimes our interactions are brief, sometimes long-lasting, but they all add up to something. We forage things and experiences that form our ideas about the world and ourselves. We live in the “what-ifs” of countless little choices.

If I could write Christian a letter today, I’d say something like this:

Dear Christian,

Thank you for the gift that came straight from your unabashed heart. Thank you for making me feel special that day. I hope my awkwardness didn’t make you feel silly or regretful about your gift. You can change a person’s life in one day, too, because you did mine.

Your gift told me everything wonderful about you: you’re generous, thoughtful, and downright bold. It told me wonderful things about me, too. That I deserved the admiration and friendship from someone as good and kind as you. And though I waded through plenty of heartbreak and rejection over the years, (including in 5th grade at a different school, the boys putting a literal tack on my chair) someday I’d feel worthy of being pursued and encouraged and loved.

Though I wonder about how things turned out for you, I feel they can only be good. I hope you got the family you wanted and that you’re the most outrageously talented marketing expert there ever was. And I hope you’re teaching your kids how to do the Moonwalk.

With love,

Shelli

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Thinking about my own past life, I’ve learned that it’s OK to cry about the “what-ifs.” It’s OK to wonder about where different paths might’ve taken us. In fact, it’s a healing practice to do so. Because as much as I wonder, I always eventually come back to the idea that ultimately there’s very little I would change.

Nostalgia is more than a longing for the past; it’s healing for the life you chose.