09/09/24
Rest of My life / In a Past Life
I remembered a scene from Big Fish that goes like:
“You don’t even know me”
“I have the rest of my life to find out”
I remembered a scene from Bridges of Madison County that goes like:
“All I’ve ever done in my life is making my way to you”
“This kind of certainty comes but just once in a lifetime. Some people search all their life for this and never find it. Others don’t even know it exists”
I have a theory that there are two types of lovers we meet in our lives.
- Rest of My Life
I had this theory after I watched those two films, but it is fascinating to discover the existing language that actually describes this kind of feeling. The Deftones’ album named Koi No Yokan, is a Japanese phrase “恋の予感", translating to "premonition of love". This is the feeling that you know you are going to fall in love with someone over time, even before it happens.
- In a Past Life
This is the feeling you get when you meet someone for the first time but feel like you’ve known each other forever, maybe even in a past life. Wu Bai’s song "再重复相逢" talks about the idea that two people who are so different that meet and fall in love in this life must have crossed paths in a previous life, carrying forward that connection of “wow, it feels like I’ve known you my whole life”.
So what if you encounter two people at the same time, one who feels like they belong in the rest of your life, and the other who feels like they’re from a past life? How do you decide which path to follow as your “once in a lifetime,” that pivotal moment on your timeline?