But Would You Change Things

A few evenings ago, instead of studying for my math test, I watched a movie. 2016's Arrival, starring Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner. My time management is on point, ladies and gentlemen. In the film is a quote that strikes me deeply every time.

"If you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you change things?"

Arrival is one of those fantastic pieces that keeps you thinking hours after it ends. You think about the story and the characters, naturally, but then you also think about the progression of time. You think about decisions and free will and love. It forces you to think about your life.

And it is scary to think about life, reader, because despite what we want, despite what we achieve, or how tightly we hold on, we know exactly how it will end. We don't know the means of the end, perhaps, but we are all very aware of death. Thinking about life makes you feel extraordinarily mortal. You are finite, your experiences are finite, your loves are finite; this we know. But it's still weird.

Death is so frequently viewed through the lens of life. I think maybe that is why it's so daunting. No one dead can tell us what it's like. No one can dictate what it feels like the very second life leaves a body. We're frightened because there is no manual, no rules, no right or wrong way to die - death defies all the conventions of the living world. In contrast, life is not often viewed through the lens of death. We know, theoretically, we ought to live each day as though it is our last. We know we should be present, express what people mean to us, seize every opportunity at hand. But we don't. We're more afraid of dying, of risks and hurting, than we are of not living.

"If you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you change things?"

The quote makes me think - if we were more conscious of life in relation to death than we are the opposite, how would it change our lives? If you could see your entire story, spread out in front of you, see life as a seamless whole rather than a haphazard compilation, would you change it?

I think less people would fall in love, because they would know the heartache to follow. I think kids would take three fewer AP classes. Maybe you'd see in foresight (or would it be hindsight?) that painting your room neon green wasn't the best idea - maybe you'd pick a mellow grey instead. In short, I am of the opinion that we would erase the painful bits. We'd sweep away the unnecessary stress and suffering, the brash decisions, to ink in all of the opportunities wasted. This makes complete sense, really. We're human. Human is hurting. The human experience is to avoid this hurting and find salves to soothe it.

At first, this hypothetical situation sounds incredibly beneficial. You'd remember to turn in your math polynomial project. You'd study for your test instead of watching Arrival. You wouldn't waste babysitting money on seeing the Emoji Movie in theaters.

But here's the thing. If you ripped up any seams of your story, from start to finish, it would no longer be your story. You would no longer have the moments that make you, you. Every weekend, I volunteer at a local memory care facility. One of the residents I treasure the most is Ms. Berlene, a 96-year-old powerhouse who loves to tell tales of her equestrian-rich youth. Ms. Berlene meets me a-fresh every week. She does the same puzzle (a 36-piece 50's Diner) for the first time at least four times a month. Ms. Berlene's Alzheimer's, to me, is the erasing of a life without permission. She can't remember the mistakes she made yesterday. She can't remember that last week, she colored a picture of icicles pink because she didn't realize they were icicles because she couldn't remember what icicles were. She loses herself more and more every day, and it breaks my heart, but it also teaches me so much. The narrative of her life is no longer hers; it's at the mercy of her disorder. Berlene's life has been rewritten without her consent, and because of that, it isn't whole. She is living a half-life.

Although she doesn't suffer from much of the hurt in her life, she also can't relive the beautiful moments. Often, our suffering can lead to our joy. Your pilot, How I Met Your Father, was cancelled? I'd imagine that would be crushing, but little did you know you'd go on to write and direct Lady Bird and Little Women (hi, Greta. I'm still bitter about the Oscar nominations).

Film industry rages aside, my point is this - our lives aren't complete without the nastier bits. It's difficult to recognize this in the moment. We don't want to suffer, at any level, for any amount of time. But in hindsight, we see that these experiences mold us. I think we are all so convinced that there is a better version of ourselves out there. We're so fixed on the idea of personal development, so sure that when we reach the next level, all of the wounds in our worlds will be cured. What if this is the best version, reader? What if there is only this version of you, made by those who have built and broken you? And if you take those builders and breakers away? You're no longer the same person.

I guess what I'm not-so-eloquently trying to convey is that a life is only a life because of the things we are tempted to change. Experiences are defined by mistakes just as much as they are by growth. So my answer is no. If I could see your whole life from start to finish, I wouldn't change things. Sometimes I hate how shy I am. I wish I could articulate better. Sometimes I wish I'd have told people what they meant to me. I wish I'd eaten in eighth grade. I wish I'd stayed in touch. I wish I wouldn't adapt who I am to what is comfortable for other people. I wish many, many things had been different. I have no doubt that this will remain true sixty years from now.

But I need this, all of this, to be Maya. There is my life, start to finish, written in a book. Sitting on a miscellaneous tree stump in a miscellaneous forest. Can you see it? The beginning is relative to the end, and the end isn't permanent. Stories are circles. The pages are gilded, because why the hell not. I read it. There is a pencil in my hand, and a magic fairy tells me I can go back. I can change it. With just a little graphite, just a little rubber, I could rewrite a world.

I wouldn't.

I would let myself live through all of the loss and the grief and the love and the happiness. I would let myself say things I'd regret. I wouldn't extract all of the shame I've had. Life is what happens when we beat on against the hurting; it is most certainly not a cruise.

Because this is how we learn and grow into our own skins. A life of peaks and valleys is a life. A life of only peaks? Well, I'd imagine that life would be very cold and have an insufficient amount of oxygen.

Let your life breathe.
- Maya

P.S. Thank you for 10,000 page-views. Numbers are arbitrary, but the people behind them are not. Thank you for sharing my words and worlds.

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