Maybe it will be okay

23 Jul 2025

I love stories about the afterlife. Despite not liking comedy, The Good Place is my favorite TV show. I appreciated The Discovery for delivering on its concept of life after death (a premise that so easily lends itself to ambiguity). I'm enamored with (and halfway through reading) Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives.

Endings are important to me.⁴ I rarely start a book, film, or TV show without first reading its full synopsis. (I do not know why some people dislike spoilers. I find that no summary or advance information could spoil experiencing the story in its intended format. However, a dissatisfying or non-ending will certainly spoil the experience for me.) Sometimes I read the end of a book first.

I think about my own last days: what I might feel, what I might think, what I'd like to feel or think. I'd like to be comfortable with the choices I've made, knowing that I made them for myself. I've spent so much of my youth living for others. I felt unworthy, so the things that were mine I gave away to others without thought. Old habits are easy to fall back into, so I'm mindful. (I suspect I'm still indecisive on children not only because of my lack of feeling, but also because I am not ready to prioritize another life over my own again.)

While driving home from our dentist appointment yesterday, we discussed what we would tell our younger selves. E has long said he would tell younger E that life gets better, to hang on. I would tell younger me that she is worthy, to not give everything away.

Over dinner in Seattle, P asked how marriage was going for me. She was surprised that (1) I had met someone I liked enough to be with and (2) I liked him enough to marry him. She had not thought she'd marry her E, but the pandemic changed her mind.¹ She saw that there was nothing she and her partner could do for each other if either of them fell ill. It was a practical choice (but she didn't want to make light of it, recognizing that the opportunity to marry was hard-fought). I said it was the same for me and my E. We lived on opposite sides of the world and our countries closed their borders. Marrying meant we could not be kept apart.

I asked if they had seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, explaining that the film's closing sentiment aligned with my feelings on marriage: marriage is misery,² but maybe it will be okay if it's with my E. I added that it has been less awful than I expected. P laughed, while her E replied, "That's so romantic." They had a back-and-forth on why she thought so, and I appreciated that someone else understood.

P was the first person³ to tell me, all those years ago, that I had no boundaries — that I'd develop some by the time I was her age. When my 30th birthday came, years after she left for a new city, I texted her to tell her that she was right. It's a part of our friendship I like to remember: she watched out for me when I did not know better. We ended dinner with plans to spend the weekend together the next time I'm in town.