#2- on timing

"all time ever does is pass and all i ever do is remember"

Click here to read this piece on Substack.

at 8am on a Sunday morning in October, i got off the plane at Bush Intercontinental Airport and started walking purposefully, backpack and earbuds in tow, towards the baggage claim. I was anxious to get home, couldn’t wait to collapse in my bed at my parents’ house. I had spent most of that Saturday night with my friends at a nightclub in NYC– we sung and danced, drunk, to RENAISSANCE until 2am. Then I took an Uber to JFK at 3am to catch my flight. Safe to say, I had not gotten a wink of sleep.

I got on the escalator (going up a floor) behind a couple with a young child. As we neared the top, the toddler tripped and toppled backwards– and in the nick of time, I managed to catch him, cradling his head in my hands to protect him from the impact of his fall. His parents thanked me, relieved. And as quickly as it happened, it was over– we got off the escalator, I went to baggage claim, then home to my parents. I would probably never see those strangers, those parents and their child, ever again.

Months later, I still haven’t forgotten about that moment. If my flight had landed a minute or two later; if I didn’t check my luggage; if I hadn’t been there at that exact moment in time– that child would have fallen precariously down the entire flight of stairs. I keep thinking that maybe some unseen force conspired to have me there, in that exact place, at that precise time, to prevent harm from occurring. Maybe it was divine timing, if you believe in such a thing. That incident (and my reflections about it in the months after) are what sparked the idea for this newsletter.

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So much time has passed since my last newsletter in July. (i’m sorry!!) These past several months, I started and ended a job, moved out of Austin, traveled to NYC, NOLA, Chicago, LA, exchanged gifts with loved ones, and rang in the New Year.

It’s crazy to think that all these moments have led up to an entirely new year. One day you’re opening the door to your workplace or walking around the farmers market, or talking to someone you love on the phone, or laughing with friends over dinner, or sitting on the couch, or looking out the window of a car, an airplane, a living room– and suddenly a year has passed like an eclipse, a subtle shift, a threshold you just passed through without even looking for it.

by Sue Zhao

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2022 was a particularly bad year for me. In March and April, I experienced a manic/psychotic episode, and was hospitalized for weeks as a result. I lost several friends. I went through a breakup, and graduated college with no job lined up, nor the faintest idea of what i wanted to do next.

All things considered, even though all of those things are supposedly behind me now, I’ve still found myself struggling a lot with how to move forward and how to let go of the past. I’m haunted by it constantly– I think about how good things used to be before I fucked everything up, and part of me wishes I was allowed to turn back time and fix things, to keep my moments from being torn from me.

What helps me is thinking about time, and how time is not as linear as most people make it out to be. There's this assumption that the past is static and unchanging, and that the future is the only place where change can happen, where potential lives. But I disagree– I think we are always re-contextualizing our histories and pasts in ways that fundamentally change us... reverberation doesn't only come from one direction, if that makes sense.

i think there is something interesting about looking at the past, looking at the histories that live in our body and knowing they’re not complete yet. Instead of "moving forward and accepting things", I am now trying to ask: how can I welcome my past into my present self? How do I build a relationship with my ghosts? And though I can’t change the past, how can I let it change me?

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I think often about Lee Shevek’s piece “Process-Centered Love”. He writes about how many of us have been taught that our lives and relationships are only meaningful if they produce certain outcomes.

We, as a culture, have consistently been told that “forever” is the only acceptable definition of success. For example– a friendship that lasts for a few years but then ends is considered less valuable or not a “real” friendship. A hobby that you do for a while and then are done with is a “phase”. A marriage that ends in divorce is viewed as something that has “failed”.

We’ve internalized a capitalist logic, which is this: to live always on the promise of the future satisfaction of desire. Under this outcome-centered logic, we have come to understand relationships as possibilities for fantasy fulfillment. (“I will be so happy when I meet someone I can love. And then I will be so happy once we get married. And then I’ll be happy once we buy a house, and have kids, and then…”) We often get so caught up in the fantasies of our future lives, and how others can fit into it, that we miss out on being present with one another. And we get caught up in the fear-based response of trying to control change and growth that we miss the joy of witnessing it instead.

Shevek writes that this logic causes us to place others in the role of our own personal wish-fulfillers, rather than the autonomous people that they are. We get wrapped up in the process of “working towards whatever future steps we think we want to have in our relationships for them to be meaningful, and in doing so we inevitably miss the most meaningful thing relationships have to offer: the real, unique, full human beings that want to stand beside us.”

Viewing and treating the people we’re in relationship with as conduits for our fantasy fulfillment denies them respect for the fullness of their humanity, and objectifies them. We place part of their value not in the present, but in their ability to promise us future— always future— satisfaction.

I think about how this is related to the Buddhist principle that nothing is permanent– change is inevitable. Even our most intimate relationships must end—if not due to breakups or divorces, they will end naturally through death. With this in mind, I’ve been trying to be more conscious about not expecting or enforcing outcomes when it comes to being with the ones I love– now, I want to focus on just being grounded, present and bearing witness to the people they are today rather than expecting them to stick around forever.

I think that something can be good, and also end, and that thing was still good despite it not lasting forever. Endings are bound to happen; we just have to make space for them and allow something new to emerge. And it’s okay to be sad that it ended, too. But the idea that anything that ends is automatically less than this hypothetical eternal state of success… I don’t think that’s doing us any good at all.

by Yumi Sakugawa @yumisakugawa

WRITING PROMPTS:

1. If you’re so done with parts of your past, why does it keep showing up? What self-limiting emotions/coping mechanisms have you burrowed deeply in to protect yourself, but never came out of? What haven’t you dealt with once you were no longer in danger?

2. Instead of “moving forward and accepting things”, how can you welcome your past into your present self? Instead of comparing yourself to others, and being pushed to “accept things”, how can you accept your own need to feel grief on your own terms, without pressure to feel any other way? What is this grief teaching you about your desires and your dreams? What is your yearning teaching you about your heart?

3. As immersed as we are in the logic of capitalism, how can we create present, non-transactional, and fulfilling relationships? How do we cultivate relationships with one another that can still be sustainable, without falling into expecting promises or guarantees for future outcomes?

4. What are some ways you can try and cultivate a slow, timeless life in a culture obsessed with novelty, stimulation, and the future?

Yours,

meghan<3