Last October I was visiting Victoria for the first time in seven years. The plan was a fun weekend running a half marathon and spending some time with friends. The fun happened for sure, but being in the city also flooded my mind with memories and some what-ifs. These weren't the regretful what-ifs, mind you. These were the curious kind.
See, at one point back in 2014 my life could've taken a left turn, but I decided to go right. Returning to Victoria brought the that left turn back.
The Persistence of Memory
Years ago, Victoria was a cornerstone of my life. I worked for a company there which meant many trips to the place. I never lived in Victoria, but it became my second city—a place that wasn’t quite home, but was about as close as one could get.
Although in August 2014, it almost turned into home. My then-partner and I had pens in our hands, about to sign a lease agreement for a condo in the city. We backed out of the meeting and found refuge in a coffee shop seeking clarity. Was this actually the right decision for us? We couldn’t tell, but we also didn’t have enough positive signal to go through with it. So we didn’t.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but despite all the visits for work and vacation, that trip would be one of my last to the city.
That's why the recent visit surprised me. It turns out seven years does little to erase spatial memory. You probably know this feeling. It's like going back to where you grew up or visiting a neighbourhood where you lived after moving out. Sure, I navigated Victoria well enough to find all my old favourites. But this wandering was more than simply moving through the world. It had this emotional layer and even a few what-ifs. Would this have been my favourite cafe? Is this the route I would've used to walk home from work? Would I have met a new friend at this bookstore?
Past Lives and inyeon
At the same time, two stories were on my mind and no doubt influenced this reflection on the what-ifs.
A week before the trip I watched “Past Lives”, Celine Song’s semi-autobiographical film. I couldn’t get out of my head! I guessed then what I know now—the film ended up being one of my favourites of 2023.
Here’s the log line:
Nora and Hae Sung, two deeply connected childhood friends, are wrest apart after Nora’s family emigrates from South Korea. 20 years later, they are reunited for one fateful week as they confront notions of love and destiny.
Setting aside how moving and thoughtful and beautiful the film is, it introduced to me to inyeon. Inyeon is a Korean word for fate or providence. But it's reserved for describing relationships between people. In the film, Nora talks about inyeon:
It’s an inyeon if two strangers even walk past each other in the street and their clothes accidentally brush, because it means there must have been something between them in their past lives. If two people get married, they say it’s because there have been 8,000 layers of inyeon over 8,000 lifetimes.
Now, the film also pokes fun at the absurdity of this cosmic destiny. Nora mentions it’s “just something Koreans say to seduce someone”. Right before she motions to her housemate to give her a kiss. But it’s easy to see that even though Nora is logical and disregards fate/inyeon, she still leaves room (and hope?) in her heart for this idea.
This romantic idea struck a chord with me too. It made me wonder about my connection to this city and how the events there would shape my life in (yet) unseen ways.
Knowing the other timeline
Ted Chiang wrote the other story on my mind at the time, called “Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom”. He describes these devices named prisms which, after activation, create two divergent timelines. Now stick with me. Prisms also allow communication between the two timelines after the moment of activation.
Here's the implication of prisms. You could start a prism before a decision and communicate with the you in the opposite timeline. That is, the you who did the opposite of what you did.
In an imaginary world full of possibility, my mind (of course) immediately went to love. Sure enough, there’s some exploration of that in the short story, too. One charater activates a prism, then leaves a long-term relationship. Months later they check on their alternate self to see if they're happier for staying. Prisms can provide that certainty, unlike a typical what-if which is only speculation.
What could have been
So much has, of course, happened in the years since deciding not to live in Victoria. My then-partner is gone and new ones have showed up. I have new friends and I’ve had other jobs. My hobbies are different, too. But most important, I like to think that I’m a better person. One who would make the same decision as my younger self did, but with more grace and care for those around me. I like to think I would do better to save them from inconvenience at best, and turmoil at worst.
It’s not hard to imagine how life could’ve been different had I signed those papers. That’s what the most recent trip reminded me of after seven years of forgetting. But it’s also impossible to count up all I would lose from the past seven years too. What if I jumped from this timeline where I stayed in Calgary to the one where I moved to Victoria? New friends gone in an instant. Precious experiences vanished. Lovers like they never happened.
The Victoria trip might've been about running a half marathon with friends, but it ended up being an invitation to reflect and think about the choices I’ve made, how they've shaped me, and a curiosity toward the what-ifs.
So may your what-ifs do more to excite and motivate, than terrify and paralyze.
To 2024 🥂