Meet Me in Another Life

You can't ever know someone completely. You have to be everything to them and that's impossible.

Little kids all love the stars. They want to be astronauts. Explore the universe, see what no one else has ever seen. But then we get older and--we stop looking up. We keep our eyes on the ground and decide to be something realistic.

I used to be so obsessed with making the right choice. Then, after I found out what was happening to us, I thought it proved that none of our choices in here meant anything. But I was wrong. Every single choice we made told us something about ourselves, about each other.’ She turns back to him, moves his hands in emphasis with her words. ‘Peregrine tried to tell us, but I didn’t understand. I do now. That was the point. For me to know every you. And for you to know every me. Because there’s only the two of us here, we needed to be everything to each other. And no one can be that. Not in just one life.’ Her voice shakes. ‘But we’ve lived so many, and I know you, as well as I know myself. And I know that every single version of us would choose the journey. Whatever it costs.

She is an accident of atoms, and when life is done with her, she will disperse.

All of you wouldn't fit in my mind, or in any simulation. Only the universe can hold you.

It would mean you knew how to find me, even when I couldn't find myself. It would mean there really is no escaping you. But it would be a relief to stop missing someone I've never met.

She wonders if everyone feels it, this hunger to live every life, to exist as every possible version of herself. ‘There’s always a moment, isn’t there?’ she says, flicking her cigarette end off the fire escape and watching it fall. ‘A moment when you choose. This path, or another one. What if I’d chosen something different?

For me to know every you. And for you to know every me. Because there's only two of us here, we needed to be everything to each other. And no one can be that. Not in one life.

That’s probably not enough for you, is it? You want Meaning with a capital M. A message written by God in the stars, telling you the way you should go.’ Tears spring to his eyes. He can’t look at her. ‘You don’t believe that exists.’ He doesn’t know how many thoughts she lets pass unspoken. ‘I don’t know,’ she finally answers. ‘But if it does exist, I’m okay with not knowing what it says.’ She looks at him seriously. ‘Maybe that’s the only way to survive this. To be okay with not knowing.’ She stands, patting her pocket for the keys.

I mean, they only know each other as husband and wife. They might say things, do things, with their friends, even with you, that they’d never show to each other.’ He shrugs. ‘You can’t ever know someone completely. You’d have to be everything to them, and that’s impossible.

Thora looks down at her fingers, the rope-like tendons controlling the poor puppet of her body. 'I wish I was more like you. I wish I could see a meaning.' 'I don't see it. I look for it.' His voice is quiet. 'You think it's easy. You think it--comes naturally to me. But it doesn't. I choose it. Every single time.

If love was something we had to deserve, we would all be loveless. No, love is what the world owes us.

There is no wrong choice", Santi says. "There is just what happens

He made us the kind of people who would choose to climb a ruined tower just to see the stars.

She doesn’t want to see you.’ Thora’s daughter sounds upset. ‘She says she thought she’d made that clear.’ […] ‘She also told me to tell you she’s in the central hospital, and that visiting hours are until six.

My parents. They’ve been married thirty years, but my father still discovers things about my mother that shock him.’ ‘Really,’ Thora drawls. ‘Does your mum say the same thing about your dad?’ He looks confused, then wary. ‘Why?’ ‘Because that’s a classic thing men say when they don’t want to engage with women as people. Oh, she’s such a mystery, when she’s been telling you for the past thirty years what she wants and you just haven’t been listening.

help! i'm trapped inside this bird

He comes to her. Sometimes, in their arguments, words no longer reach her. What she needs are his hands. And his attention. And his eyes looking into hers. It slows time to a manageable pace. Makes her feel less like a careening top on the verge of falling. “I am proposing,” he says “because I love you. I love your mind. I love your body. I love your infuriating skepticism and your need for space. I love the way you throw your head back when you laugh. And I don’t want to ever be without you.” She blinks. “Right,” she says, “well, I could certainly get behind that.

She’s angry at him. His security in who he is. When she feels like a bundle of contradictory ideas clumsily woven into a person.

Someone from a different planet probably wouldn't even put the same stars in constellations with each other. "Don't they belong together?" "Not really. Ancient people just thought they did because they made pictures. That's what humans do, I guess. Look up at the sky and see reflections of themselves.

I think we are all forever a mystery to each other.

Each time life puts her at a crossroads, she doubles back, terrified at the thought of trapping herself on a single path. It’s driven away everyone she’s ever tried to have a relationship with.

What’s worse than a face you love that doesn’t remember?

I've waited for you for lifetimes.

Life After Life, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle), films (Source Code, Live Die Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow, Palm Springs), and television (Russian Doll).

We are here,” he says. “But—who are we? Where is here?

That the stars keep changing. That the city repeats itself, over and over. That I’m the only one who’s really here.

Deeper than thought, deeper than her deepest principles, is that irritating conviction, like his faith is a virus that has been incubating silently inside her. It is unthinkable that she won’t see him again.

Do you ever feel like the universe is trying to push you into something? Like it’s what’s supposed to happen, and you’re just meant to let it?