By Joshua Lee
Winter 2020 Kaplan Award Winner
Early December. Sleepless in Seattle was the in-flight entertainment; the plane landed just as Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan met atop the Empire State Building. It’s a dumb movie, but it gave my brain something, anything to focus on on the way back to Hawaii, on my way home. It made me think about my first couple of months living in Seattle. When I thought about it, really thought about it, they felt like a pipe dream, a caricature of the typical Seattle experience. I was taking four day weekends, watching movies for credit, chilling out and playing the guitar most days. Reality wasn’t something I was keeping in touch with, especially by the end.
I started crying in the car ride home that night, but I knew it was quiet crying, and I knew nobody would see the tears. It was good to see my family, and besides, I’d gotten quite good at it.
A month later, in January, I’d fly out of that same airport, this time as afraid as I was content, open to the future but still wanting so desperately to be back in high school, back to when everything was about a hundred and sixty-two times simpler, back when everything seemed so clear. Why did life have to give you so much baggage?
***
Paul Simon was right. Losing love is like a window in your heart; everybody sees you’re blown apart. And everybody does indeed feel the wind blow.
Before I left, I was in Red Square at about 7:30 in the morning. I got there way earlier, closer to 6, just so I could see the sunrise. No such luck, of course. About thirty-six hours earlier, I got a fateful phone call from her, my high school partner of fourteen months, the girl I thought that I would spend the rest of my life with.
She didn’t love me anymore. I was too quick to anger. I was too clean. I judged her too harshly, made her feel like shit. For her, there was nothing left to feel. I sat thinking, my mind ruminating the last few days, few weeks, thinking about what happened, where it went wrong, what I could have done to stop all of it.
My phone rang, cutting off the soap opera in my head. It was one of my roommates, and I was about ninety percent sure my other roommate, Sean, was on the other side of that call as well. It was sweet of them to check in with me. They knew what had happened and they knew my finals were over; no person in their right mind wakes up before 6 a.m. a day after their last final unless something’s very wrong.
“Hey, James,” I answered dryly. “Hey man, you doing alright? You weren’t here when we got up.”
“Yeah, I had some errands to run. I’ll be back soon.” That wasn’t an entire lie; I was out to get my parents their Korean snacks before I went home. But it was a great excuse to breathe in the cold Seattle air one last time by myself before my departure.
When I got back to my dorm from the H-Mart, Island in the Sun by Weezer was playing on the Echo. It was a song I hadn’t heard since high school, since before everything fell apart, back when I had the time to go to her house every day after school and dream of a future that seemed oh-so-certain to us. After saying hello to my roommates and putting the groceries on my desk, I nonchalantly walked into the bathroom and silently cried.
I was back home, back to sunny Hawaii. She and I agreed to meet. Questions lingered in my head, yet I wasn’t able to ask them, wasn’t able to get out any real thoughts once I saw her again. She had cut her hair. She felt different in my arms. I returned shirts and gloves and photos. She gave me a small albeit cute ushanka-like cap. What was the purpose of all this? She said she wanted to tell me things in person, not over Skype. When we saw each other in person, she had no idea how to react. She cried more than I did.
In a confused sort of way, we went to a park. Together, we walked around the dirt paths on the outskirts of the park, next to a nearby highway. We talked about life, threw rocks at a gate, fed a nearby cow, a little slice of the midwest in paradise. Along the way she told me what I think she’d been thinking about this whole time. She kissed someone while we were still together. Not a big deal, I think. The problem was still there; she could have kissed the goddamn pope but it wouldn’t change the fact that she felt nothing for me anymore.
Twas the night before New Year’s Eve, and in Hawaii, everyone launches fireworks, even for a couple of days before, even though I’m pretty sure it’s illegal. “Happy 15,” I mumble. We got together on October 1st; it was almost our 15-month anniversary (though if you get dumped I don’t know if it still counts). I asked her if she’s talking to the guy she kissed. I wasn’t ready for the answer.
“Yes.” She didn’t meet my eyes. I nodded my head. What could I say to that? We embraced. Maybe for the last time, I considered. There’s a possibility that after December 30th, 2019, I will never see this girl again. “I hope you’re able to find whatever you’re looking for,” she told me, arms on my shoulders.
I felt the goosebumps on her arm, the curve of her waist. I looked into her deep blue eyes, into those oceans that I fell so in love with, fell too hard, maybe. Goodbye, I thought, my entire body moving in slow motion, my mind not really processing what was happening to me.
“What I’m afraid of is that I already found it,” I told her before I got into my car and drove home.
The benefit of living in Hawaii is that, even in December, you can go down to the beach and walk on the sand. I used to get cold in seventy-degree weather.
How things change. Everyone I talked to said the same thing. “Long-distance is always tough.” “The odds were never in your favor.” “You did the best you could.” It was like I’d just failed a midterm. “There’s always the final, don’t worry about the quiz.”
Countless times I approached my mother, asking for her help. At first, I didn’t want to be sad, or feel weak. She let me feel that; without her, I doubt I would have made it through December. I tried to be stonehearted, but as the days turned into weeks with no new information, I broke down at an exponential rate. She was always there, consoling me, guiding me through the process. After three weeks, I accepted that it wasn’t my fault.
Initially, I didn’t talk about it with my father. I think I knew what he would say, something along the lines of “she was just one girl.”
One day, I got an invitation to go to work with him. He’s a business agent for a union and had something to take care of on the west side of the island, near the resorts. He said I could hang out at the strip malls and beaches while he “does his thing.” On the drive there, he turned off the radio and turned his attention to me. Thinking back on it, he must have thought very carefully about what to say here.
It went something like this: “What happened here was out of your control. Whatever led her to make that decision, you didn’t have anything to do with it. I know you, I know you would never do a relationship halfway. She really was your first girlfriend, and there’s plenty more for you to discover, especially in Seattle. When it comes down to it, it’s her loss. You will come out of this stronger than you know.”
Now, do we ever really know our fathers? My relationship with my father was never perfect, especially growing up. He’s a remnant of the old Korea, an old soul. Over the last couple of years, our conflicts have transformed into open talks, talks from the soul. Talks like that one.
I wish I could have looked him in the eyes and said everything I wanted to say. “Thank you,” “I love you,” tons more. But I stared out of the passenger window instead, thinking about all the things I could be saying.
We agreed to meet one last time before we parted. Even I could see that there were still things left unsaid, left unknown. “Write a letter,” I told her. “No more regrets.”
Mine was about six pages, hers was about two. I wrote about how much things have changed and how much I still feel for her, but I acknowledge that what was there is gone now. I lamented a love lost, but I remained hopeful for the future. Her letter was a retelling of everything that happened in autumn semester, what really happened. Her companions took on
jobs and long shifts, while she, slowly, was isolated from her friends, family, and me. She was filled with existential dread, culminating with the witnessing of a fatal car accident. She felt as if she had nobody to turn to. She was filled with guilt, guilt about everything, so she called me and broke it off.
I put down the letter, my mind racing at a million miles an hour. “So what does this mean for us?” I ask.
She thought pensively for a moment. Still crying. “I think that I still love you. And I don’t think I’ll stop loving you anytime soon.” ***
The winter of 2020 was not an ideal first winter for a non-native Seattleite. Writing now with the spring on the horizon and the Sun making its many appearances puts things into a grandiose perspective.
The day we exchanged letters was the first day in a month that I felt I was in control. I felt like now I had a say in where I wanted to go with my life. I had no reason to feel bad for her, no reason to take pity on her. So I didn’t.
“Be honest with your family, with your friends.” I held her again, but I knew that it wouldn’t be the last time. “Be honest with yourself.”
I got back with her not because I felt bad for her, but because I still love her. I didn’t see a reason to stop something that still has so much emotion, so much love, even with the miles and miles between us.
There were so many moments, in the darkest days of winter, when I didn’t know if I could do it. I didn’t know if I had enough trust, enough love in me. But if losing love is a window to your heart, then finding love again is building from the remains. It might never be the same house, at least not exactly, but it will be home.
Maybe I’m stupid, but I think that love is the one place where it’s socially acceptable to make stupid decisions anyhow.