The Past and the Future

(Thursday, March 20, 2025)

Today in class, we had an exercise on hypothèse. We had to complete a sentence starter using the hypothetical tense. I chose: “Si j’étais une technologie, je serais…” (If I were a technology, I would be…). A question I’ll probably never need in real life, but still, I played along.

I said: “Si j’étais une technologie, je serais une machine à remonter le temps.” If I were a technology, I would be a time machine.

Immediately, the American girl sitting next to me turned to me and asked: “What would you change if you went back?”

Without thinking, I said, “Nothing. I wouldn’t change anything.”

Did I love every moment of my life while I was living it? The times I was beaten as a kid for stealing 10 cents from my parents to buy snacks after school. The nights I cried on the intercity bus, dreading my return to a rigid rural boarding school. The loneliness after moving to the U.S. alone, missing home. The numerous heartbreaks I endured, and the guilt of giving them to others. Just a fraction of my personal encyclopedia of misery.

Do I really want to live through all of that again?

Well I think so. Maybe that’s what life is about—to love, to unlove, to meet new people, to say goodbye, to experience, and to feel everything fully.

I’ve never been good at un-loving or saying goodbye, but I know this: The people who have left my life are still a part of me, and the people waiting for me afar bring me comfort as I explore the world.

And I know I’m lucky to be able to say that I miss my childhood. I miss being the happiest, most carefree tomboy, so loved by my parents and grandparents. Everything back then felt stable, effortless.

Now, from across the Pacific Ocean, I watch our family group chat fill with updates—how my grandparents are back in the hospital again, how my parents are exhausted from caring for them, barely managing their own lives in the process.

This morning, I saw a photo of my grandmother. At first, I barely recognized her. Cancer has taken its toll.

In my memory, my grandmother was always the strongest woman I knew—working tirelessly inside and outside the house, taking care of everyone, and always doing it so well. When I visited last year, she looked much older than before, but she was still able to care for herself. Now, in this photo, she is lying in a pale blue hospital bed, her face so thin, deep lines carved into her skin. Her eyes barely open. This is the third time this month she’s been hospitalized. My parents and uncles have been by her side day and night, never sleeping more than three hours at a time. They can’t work. Everything looks chaotic and heavy.

So if I had a time machine, I would take myself back to when life was stable, quiet, and simply happy. I would give it to my parents and grandparents, too—maybe they would love to be children again, to be with their parents and grandparents once more. If this technology existed, I wouldn’t care for any others. I could write instead of type, light candles instead of switch on lamps, travel only by foot and by boat.

But this is hypothèse. It’s not real.

In the evening, a few students and I went to a boat bar on the river for drinks. I got to know a couple of them better—one American girl had quit her job as an archaeologist and is studying French for nine months and then will try to work at a coffee shop. Another Australian guy had also quit his job and is taking a six-month break to improve his French before doing the same.

I admire their plans. Big changes are always good, eventually. (And I understand why they’re so insistent on speaking French outside of class instead of English. They have a deadline.)

They reminded me of myself at 19, convincing my parents to let me drop out and move to New York alone. At 26, of quitting my "dream job" at BCG to start a company in the U.S. by myself.

Now I’m in the middle of another big change. Going from being an entrepreneur to working at Walmart doesn’t feel as cool as their transformations, but I’m truly excited. I trust that I’ll achieve so much in this next chapter. Work hard, stay open-minded, be kind.

I feel like I’ve been floating for years—maybe a decade. 

And now, finally, I’m about to land. And that feels pretty damn exciting.