August 27, 2023
episode description
tune in to my first ever 10/10 book review of Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi to learn more about the book that I will literally be thinking about until the day I die.
transcript
If you could go back, who would you want to meet?
That question is written on one page in the beginning of the book, Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. And this book, this book was so good. It was so good.
Before the Coffee Gets Cold is about this cafe in Japan, and there's a rumor that, in this cafe you can go back in time. And this rumor intrigues a whole bunch of people. Of course, everybody wants to go back in time for one reason or another. But, when they get there, there's all these rules. There's so many of them, that by the time they get through hearing all the rules, they don't even want to bother going back to the past.
One of the most pressing rules being that even if you go back in time, the present will not change. Which begs a question of what's even the point of going back in time if the present is not gonna change, right? Even in the book it says, like, that's the whole thing, that's the whole point.
In all the movies about going back to the past, the whole point, the whole warning is about being careful of what you do in the past, because that's gonna impact the future. And so when people hear this rule, they're like, what? What are you talking about? Like, get out my face. They're like literally pissed off.
That is the beginning of my intrigue from this book. I was in a reading slump before this book and this book. It took me out of the reading slump. It's the perfect reading slump book. It's 200 pages, but the book is small, so it's not even like the regular 200 pages.
The book is the size of my hand. Granted, I have pretty big hands, but it's still like not like your standard sizing of a hardcover book. So it probably is only like 150 if it was a standard sized book. This is the perfect reading slump book because not only is it so touching, it's just such a wonderful story.
But anyway, back to this cafe in Japan. It can bring you back to the past.
It's a story about time traveling and the story is broken up into four parts The first one is called the lovers, then husband and wife, then the sisters, and then ending on mother and daughter. And each one of these stories is just so tragic and so touching it's literally about exactly what you think it's about like the lovers, the husband and wife, the sisters, the mother and daughter. Each section focuses on that relationship.
It truly was a great book. I highly recommend everyone to read this book. I even, like, I think I'm gonna rate it a 10. Is that our first 10 out of 10? Like, I think it is. Yeah, this book is a 10 out of 10. When I say 10 I feel like, you know, there's two thoughts of thinking with rating.
It's like, oh, I only rate books 10 if they blew my mind and, like, it was absolutely perfect. Or, if I enjoyed the book, it's a 10 out of 10. I feel like I'm somewhere in the middle of that where 10 for me simply means that there is nothing that I really would change about this book, even if there was parts where I was like, huh?
There's still nothing I would change about it. So before the coffee gets cold gets a 10 from me and really I kind of I just want to end this non spoiler review part of the episode by asking you again, if you could go back who would you want to meet if you could go back in time? Who would you want to meet?
And when I was thinking about this question myself I said, I personally would want to meet myself, which I don't even know if that'd be possible within the parameters of the time travel of this world. Bu right now, if I could go back in time, I would want to meet my younger self. Because I feel like, given the stage of my life that I'm at, where it's like, I don't know what I'm doing, I'm just living every day, and not sure what shape, what form my life is gonna take, I kinda wanna go back and meet my younger self, and talk to my younger self, cause I feel like it will recenter me, and it will help me figure out what it is that I want for my life, like, truly.
Like, what kind of life I want to live. And I don't know why I feel like that answer lies within my younger self, the child version of myself, but for some reason, it feels like it does. Anyway, now if you haven't read the book, I would stop listening now and come back when you finish because I got a lot to say.
So, for this book, boy, if I was in a different place right now, I would have been bawling while reading this book, like literally in tears. I'm going to talk through the book. Through each section, so let's start with the lovers.
This story was so interesting. It was really interesting to me, because this one wasn't that sad. I feel like it kind of like, eased you into the sadness, you know what I'm saying? This one was more— this section was more about introducing the idea of time travel. And it was kind of like funny, a little bit hysterical with the quote that says, "even supposing it was possible, the sticky point of not being able to change the present certainly made the whole idea seem pointless." And when I was reading this book, I was like, yeah, it is pointless.
What the heck is the point? Like, girl, nothing is gonna change. Why— what's the point of time travel? Then you might as well just stay in your current reality. I was totally agreeing. And it was really interesting to me how the author changed all the cliches that we were so used to, where nothing changes in the present and then there's the ghost.
The ghost in the cafe. So one of the rules in the cafe is that to travel back to the past, or to travel in time, you have to be sitting in a specific seat in the cafe. And you can only time travel if you're sitting in that one seat. But, the stipulation is that there is a woman in a dress that is always sitting in the seat, all the time.
So it's like, how the hell are you gonna travel back to the past if the woman is always sitting in the seat? Like, right? That's what you're thinking. And then they say, but the woman gets up every day, once a day, to go to the bathroom. And then that is your chance to go sit in the seat. And I was like, girl, what?
That seems so inconvenient. Like, all the rules were like, well, that's just how it is. Like, that's just how it works. It's just, that's just the way it goes. And it was so funny to me as a writer, because I feel like I spent all of my time trying to justify why things are a certain way, instead of just allowing them to be.
But anyway, back to the cliches. So, nothing changes in the present when you travel back to the past. What's that effect? The domino effect? I don't remember. There's some like effect that has a name for when you travel back to the past. But yeah, so that cliche wasn't in there. It was like, it was like going against the cliches actually.
The fact that ghosts can be touched and seen in this cafe at least. I don't know about in the universe, but in this cafe, the ghosts can be seen and can be touched. And if you do touch the ghost, if you do try to like yank the ghost out of the chair, instead of waiting for it to go to the bathroom, it will curse you. You'll feel like you have all this weight on you, and you won't be able to move, you'll be paralyzed, which was just terrifying. That she'll glare at you and you'll be like, paralyzed.
Anyway! Yeah, so I was like, what the heck is going on with this ghost? They said that the ghost is there because that is someone who traveled back in the past and did not follow the rules. The only, main, most important rule of time travel being that you have to drink your coffee before it goes cold. Right? They pour you a cup of coffee, you go back into the past, but you gotta drink that shit before it gets cold. Why? Because then if you don't drink it before it gets cold, you get stuck in the past.
And you become a ghost in that chair. Like, you would replace the lady in the dress. And they said something about how the lady in the dress went back in the past to meet her husband and lost track of time and that's why she is the way she is. So there's this constant threat that you can travel back in the past but there's a lot of stipulations and there's a risk that you might become that ghost, that person sitting in that chair.
And so this was all the more infuriating to the person who wants to travel back in the past in this section of the book because there's nothing she can do but wait. Like, she just has to wait until the woman gets up to go to the bathroom. But then there was this one quote that I found really interesting that was really, like, it made it seem like there's a little bit of hope.
It just feels like all your hopes are dashed when they tell you that going back into the past doesn't change anything in the present. But then, the person, the character that wants to go back into the past in this chapter, I can't remember her name, but she asks, "What about the future? Does the future change if you go back into the past?"
And they just, the person at the cafe that works there just responds by saying, "Well, as the future hasn't happened yet, I guess that's up to you," which was like Interesting to me and when I finished reading about the two lovers who had come to the cafe and the boyfriend came to the cafe essentially intending to break up with her and tell her I got a job in America and I'm leaving now and and she like is upset about that and wants to go back into the past because she has regrets, right?
She regrets that she didn't tell him to stay. She didn't at least ask him to stay. It felt so perfect to begin with this story because when she does go back to the past, intending to tell him, Please don't leave. I love you. I want you to stay with me. And then she gets there, and she can't say it. She's hung up by her pride, she just, I don't know, something is holding her tongue back from saying it, and she just kind of like acts a little bratty. She's resentful, she's like, well, it's not like I will even have the power to stop you in the end.
It's not like anything I say will stop you from going to America for your job. Cause that's his dream job, right? When she met him, she knew the whole time that that was his dream job. And her real big hang up is not the fact that he goes. It's the fact that he didn't think to talk to her. To consult her about it.
Just that he wanted to meet up with her to break up with her and tell her that he's taking the job in America. No conversation. And I think that's what really baffles her and really hurts her feelings the most. But then there's this big revelation that it's not even that he really wanted to break up with her.
It's that she's this beautiful woman, and he's this like nerdy guy, and conventionally, I guess unattractive guy. And he was so conscious of the fact that other men desired her, that he always felt inferior, that he didn't deserve her, that she deserved something different, something that he couldn't give her.
I guess to him, it kind of felt like he was setting her free. So, when she acts all bratty and is all like, well, it's not like you would stay for me anyway. He gives this big confession where he tells her that he didn't think that he was worth it. Worth her. Her time, her love, all of that. And it's so sad!
And it's so unexpected, because all this time, she's thinking about how he is just putting her his job before her. Because that's kind of like how she was before. She was so career oriented, career focused, that her job came before anything else. So to hear that his problem was not even anything close to what she thought it was, was so surprising because you this whole time they're priming you— the book is telling you like this is probably why he did what he did. This is why it would make sense that he did what he did, like duh. And so the big reveal is kind of humbling. It reminds you that not everybody sees the world through your eyes.
And that big revelation it's so, I don't know, like comforting, I guess? Like it makes your chest feel all warm. Because then that chapter ends basically by, with the message that the purpose of going to the past wasn't to change the present, but to kind of like change the future. Because now that the girlfriend knows this information, she's going to act differently in the future.
It's going to impact her actions in the future. Even if in her present, her boyfriend leaving for America, didn't change. And it feels kind of like, like I kind of like this version of going back to the past because it feels kind of like a trial run, you know, like you can do or say whatever you want, you can pour your heart out and there are no consequences.
I guess maybe there might be some consequences, like, you could get your feelings hurt a little bit or you might perceive that person differently, but there are no tangible consequences in the way that, like, say you, like, confess to somebody, right, you tell them you like them, and then they, like, rejected you, and then you might feel, like, embarrassed around them, you know, you might feel some type of way because you know that they know about how you felt at that time.
So here are the rules of time traveling in this book. The first rule is that the only people that you can meet while going to the past are the people who have already visited the cafe. So you can't go back in time expecting to meet someone that's never been to the cafe. And then the second rule is that no matter how hard you try, while you're back in the past, the present will not change.
And then another rule— there's so many rules, is that in order to go back to the past, you have to sit in a specific seat in the cafe. And you can only travel back to the past if you're sitting in that seat. The seat that is almost always occupied by a ghost. The fourth rule is that when you're in the past, you have to stay in the seat that you sat in to travel back in the past.
You can't move from it, because if you do, you'll be forcibly transported back to the present. And the last rule, which is not really the last rule, because there's a bunch of other rules that they introduce throughout the book, but this is the last important rule, is that there's a time limit. And the time limit is that you have to return to the present before your coffee gets cold.
You have to drink the entire cup before your coffee gets cold. Which seems so stressful. To me, honestly, I would be stressed. Like, I'd be touching that cup every ten seconds. Like, is it cold yet? Is it cold yet? I'd be stressed.
Anyway, on to the next section called Husband and Wife. This section is what really got me, like, hooked on the book.
After I read the section, I was like, I gotta read the whole book. Like, it's just gotta happen. I gotta finish it right now! So this story centers around a love letter and it has to do with characters that we had met in the first story of the book. So, there's a husband and wife, and the husband comes to the cafe two or three times a week, about.
And he just sits there and he reads his magazine, his travel magazine, every time. And it's revealed that, later on, the husband has Alzheimer's which the wife knew about, the wife is a nurse, so she saw the symptoms, like she saw it coming, the first signs.
She takes care of him, as his wife, as a nurse. And this section opens with him forgetting that she is his wife, and it's so devastating to her because she talks about how she knew this day was coming, but she dreaded it anyway. Um, and it still hurt, even though she saw it coming, it hurt, it broke her heart, and I was like, no, please.
Like, stop, you're breaking my heart. And so when she talks to him, right, this first day that he's ever forgotten that she's his wife, she kind of talks to him as if she's, like, getting to know him. And she asks him what he's doing in the cafe, and he says he's there to travel back in time. Of course, he already knows about, like, the whole thing about the cafe being able to travel back in time.
And he says he's sitting there, he's waiting for the lady, the ghost, to get up out of her seat so he can travel back in time. And she's like, well, what would you want to do if you went back in time? And he's like, I would want to give this letter to my wife, and mind you she's his wife, then after he leaves the cafe owner is like talking to the wife and they're like, I wonder like what's in the letter. It must be a love letter, right?
He must have written you a love letter. And so they go back and forth. Is it a love letter? They're like convinced it's a love letter and the wife is like it's not a love letter guys and you guys are being so ridiculous, but eventually the wife gives in. She wants to know what's in the letter.
So she goes back in time to a time when he still remembers her. He still remembers that she's his wife and before he started like really losing his memory. Just to get the letter, to find out if it's a love letter or if it's not a love letter. Because he wouldn't give it to her in the present because he doesn't remember that she's his wife.
There's no, in her mind anyway, there's no other way for her to read this letter. Other than to go back in time and ask him for it. And when the reveal of the letter, like, when the book told us what was in the letter, I was like, it wasn't a love letter? That wasn't no love letter. Bro. Like, all that just for it not to be a love letter.
That's how I felt at first. But then as I thought about it more and more, it, it felt more and more like it was a love letter. And not in the way that a traditional... Love letter works where it's like, I love you so much. You know what I mean? Like professing your love. It felt like a different way of professing your love in a way that is so much more heartbreaking.
So he wrote the letter when he was fine, when he found out that he was sick, right? When he found out hat he was going to lose his memory. And he wrote it basically like kind of, kind of like apologizing to her about what was about to happen to him. And it makes it all the more, like there's more layers in the story because he, when he was growing up he didn't have time to learn how to read or write that much, he dropped out of school to help his family with whatever their business was.
So he didn't really get to practice reading or writing that much. So he didn't really like reading or writing. So the fact that he even wrote this letter is so... so touching, that he had something he wanted to tell her, but he couldn't bring himself to tell her to her face with words, so he went through the struggle of writing even when he was so insecure about it.
It was like, oh my god, like, stop. This is so sad. This is so touching. It, all, that made it all the more touching. But the reason I said I feel like this is a love letter is because while he was saying that he was sorry to his wife in his letter, it is basically his own way of telling her that he loves her.
In the letter, the quote that stood out to me the most was when it says, "So I ask you to never forget one thing. You are my wife, and if life becomes too hard for me as my wife, I want you to leave me. You don't have to stay by me as a nurse. If I'm no good as a husband, then I want you to leave me."
Which was, oh my god, because his wife is a nurse, she felt like even if she could no longer be by his side as his wife, she could continue to live by his side, as his nurse, like taking care of him, even when he forgets everything, even when he forgets who he himself is. But in this letter he's telling her that she doesn't have to feel like she needs to do that.
He's basically setting her free. And not that she feels particularly trapped or confined by the idea of taking care of him, but he is letting her know that he loves her enough to tell her to leave him, if she's feeling restricted in some way. And what really, truly, truly, truly, breaks my heart at the end of this story is realizing the fact that he still remembered that he wanted to give her this letter even after he had forgotten who she was.
Oh my gosh, I was like, wow, wow, wow, wow.
And I kind of reframed my entire thinking about what it means to write a love letter or what a love letter even is because I really honestly, for me, I thought that a love letter means, like, you're professing your love, you're, you know, telling them about why you love them.
But, really, a love letter is just an expression of love, no matter what form that comes in. Which, in this case, it comes in the form of basically saying, I love you so much, please don't put yourself through suffering for me.
Okay, so the next section of this book is called The Sisters. And this section really broke my heart, especially as a younger sibling.
So this section is about two sisters who, you know, the older sister left home because she didn't want to run her parents business. They expected her to, but she didn't want to do it so she left and then her younger sister ended up being the one that had to do it. And so her younger sister comes back and keeps asking her to come back home and run the inn and that everything will be okay if she comes back home, basically but she doesn't want to because her character— this quote perfectly describes the older sister. "She wanted to do things her own way. Her behavior meant that her parents didn't worry about her, but it was precisely this free spiritedness that ultimately led to her refusal of her parents wish that she would one day take over the inn. She didn't hate her parents, nor did she hate the inn. She simply lived for her freedom."
And I kind of related to that line, because not that pressuring me to do anything in my life, but it just feels like sometimes I'm expected to live my life a certain way or to achieve things or to do certain things to satisfy other people's perception of what my life should be. Because I know that there are a lot of people who have invested in me and taken care of me that I sometimes I feel pressure to show results, you know, to find the high paying job to, um, I don't know, raise a family to do whatever they think is a clear indicator that their investment in me was worth it.
So I related to the older sister's need for freedom, her unignorable desire for freedom to live her life for the sake of living it.
So, you know, the sister comes to visit her again, as she usually does, and the older sister hides from her younger sister, basically. And then, when the younger sister leaves, she gets into a car accident on her way home and dies.
And the older sister then decides that she wants to go back to the past to apologize to her younger sister. Because, in her words, her younger sister had made the effort to come and visit her time and time again, but she only saw her as a nuisance. Which is something that I'm also, like, kind of afraid of, because sometimes people get on your nerves, right?
Like, people that are constants in your life. And, you know, there's always this kind of fear that you can't be angry at them, be irritated at them, for me, because you watch all those movies where people, or like, not even just movies, like in real life people talk about people that have died in their lives and the last thing they said to them was something horrible.
So sometimes it feels like, I myself tell myself like, I can't say mean things to people or just like treat people in a certain way because I don't want that to be the last, our last moment together.
But anyway, the older sister goes back into the past, and instead of apologizing, like she kind of apologizes, she kind of lies to her sister. When her sister comes, instead of hiding, she sits at the table, the seat where she time traveled and she talks to her sister. And her younger sister does what the older sister expected, she asks her to come back home with her. The younger sister asks the older sister to come back home with her.
The older sister decides, you know, the present is not going to change, right? No matter what she does in the past, her sister is still going to die, right? Her sister is still going to die in that car accident. So the older sister decides to tell her that she will go home with her. Her older sister promises to go home with her and run the inn together.
And this is where, as the, like, the youngest sibling, I, like, my heart truly broke. For the younger sibling because her hesitant joy, like wanting to be happy, like the happiness is bursting out of her, but she like doesn't trust it was just so heartbreaking because obviously her sister has been avoiding her for years. So having this sudden change of heart is like crazy. She's like, what the heck is going on? This is not normal. I don't trust it, but she can't help her excitement anyway, even if she doesn't trust it. Even going as far as in the book saying that every time the younger sister came to visit her older sister, she knew that her older sister was going to say no.
She knew she was going to reject her, but even though she saw it coming, each time that she heard it, it hurt her, and it made her sad. Have you guys ever had something like that, where you knew it was coming, but it hurt you anyway? Like, you knew someone was going to treat you a certain way, like you knew it was inevitable, but it hurt anyway when it happened.
That is, that is exactly, that's so sad. Like, it's so sad. And then, and then the story gets even sadder. Like, I was like, no bro, this story can't get any sadder. Like, I'm about to cry. So, the reason, the whole reason the older sister really wants to apologize is because she feels like she's been selfish, right?
She left because she didn't want to run the inn, her parents inn, right? Which meant that, consequently, her younger sibling had to then fill those shoes. Because her parents still expected that of someone, and you know, logically you could be like, Oh, well her younger sister could have left anyway, screw the parents.
But, the older sister knew that her younger sister, the way she was, she wouldn't do that. Like, she would feel obligated, she would do it out of, I don't know, respect. Something. For her parents. So, the older sister wanted to apologize because she was worried that maybe her younger sister had her own dream, right?
Maybe she had her own dream. Maybe she wanted to become a painter. Maybe she wanted to go to college. Maybe she wanted to, I don't know, maybe she wanted to do something that was not the life that was laid out for her by the parents. So that's the main reason she wanted to apologize. So then we get to this heartbreaking moment where the younger sister says that her dream has always been to run the inn with her sister.
Oh my god, like that, every younger sibling, every younger sibling knows exactly what this younger sibling is— this younger sister is feeling when you really just, you just want to be with them. And it's such a childlike emotion, you know, just wanting to be with someone and then them not really wanting to be with you all the way.
Not that they don't want to be with you, but they have other things going on. It's so heartbreaking, truly. Because it reminds you of that, that image, you know, of siblings, you know how you have the older sibling and the younger sibling and the younger sibling is always following the older sibling around, the older sibling is like, go away, like, you're so annoying, and the younger sibling is just like, they just want to spend time with them, it's so, it's so heartbreaking. It's an interesting feeling, it truly is, um, to just want to spend time with someone and I mean, when you're on the other side of it, like, You don't really think about it.
You know, you're just like, oh my god they won't leave me alone, go away. But it's like, really, you don't really think about it until they're not there to bother you, to just want to spend time with you. Because there's not that many people in the world that really, like, just want to spend time with you just because.
Just because they want to be with you. Just because they want to be in your presence. Like, that is such a special... Special thing. Such a rare thing. And at the beginning of this story, when we find out that the younger sister has died, everyone in the cafe is like, Oh my god, that's so sad, like, are you okay?
And she comes back and they're like, honestly, they're a little bit irritated at her. They're like, why are you smiling and laughing right now? Like, your sister literally died, like, two days ago. What is wrong with you? Like, are you sick in the head? They look, they're like about to fight her.
They're like, um, girl, you should like have at least one tear. Because she's, I mean, you hid from her the other day. And she's like, let me grieve in my own way, everybody grieves differently. Which is so valid, because grief, grief does not, come in one form and people always have all these expectations of how your grief and how your sadness should manifest, how they think it should manifest.
Why? Because they're following the societal script, like society tells you that when there's a funeral, when someone dies close to you, you should be sobbing, you should be sad, your whole world... will stop. And not that that doesn't happen for some people, it totally does, but not everybody's gonna react like that, and it doesn't make your grief less than, or your sadness.
It doesn't even have to be about grief. It can just be about sadness in general. Like, you can be sad about something and not react the way people think you should react. You know, if you go through a breakup, just because you're not crying, just because you're, you're still going about life in a way that people will consider normal, that does not mean that your world has not shattered, right?
Just because you don't act like people expect when you feel sadness doesn't mean that your sadness is not valid. Which is something that this story touched on a little bit. And then, the older sister finally cries. She cries when she sees how happy her sister is at her promise of coming home. Because to think that her sister's happiness, the key to it, was so simple. And she could have done it so much sooner. And to think that her happiness is so short lived, like, the girl's gonna die on her way home. It's so sad. And I think what really makes her cry is that she, in her younger sister's happiness of her promise of coming home, sees her younger sister. As the little girl who used to follow her around. Like, she sees that in her. She sees that version of her sister in her. And I think that's what, like, brings her to tears. Makes her sob. And it's so interesting because this book is, like, predictable and yet, like, unpredictable at the same time. In a way that's, like, so lovely to me.
When I say that it's predictable, I don't mean that it's predictable as in like, Oh, this book was so boring, I could see everything coming. When I say it's predictable, I mean that, like, three sentences before the reveal happened— three sentences before they revealed that she's gonna go back in time to see her sister. I knew that she was gonna say that, but it felt so satisfying. It felt satisfying because it was like, it was like when they revealed it, it was like, okay, I read the book and there were a couple of things where I was like, oh, she's probably gonna go see her sister, right? Or, at the other reveal, in this, I think in this section is when it happens.
The, there's a little girl, not a little girl, there's a girl that comes back to the cafe, she's obviously traveling back in time and she wants to take a picture with one of the people who works in the cafe and the person who works in the cafe happens to be pregnant, and I'm like, oh, for sure that's her daughter.
So I like, I knew it was coming, but when it was confirmed in the book, like, when the book told me that, like, oh, that was her daughter, it felt so satisfying. It felt like there was no other way that this story should have gone. Like, that was the perfect course for this story. I don't know if I'm making sense, but what I'm trying to say is that I knew that things were gonna happen, like, certain things were gonna happen, but it made me feel satisfied. It didn't make me feel like, oh my god, like, I knew that was gonna happen. It made me feel like... good inside. Like, you know when you drink, like, soup and you just feel, like, nice inside? Soup on a winter day? Or not even soup, like, hot chocolate on a winter day, and you just feel content and warm? That's how it made me feel.
Anyway. Onto the last section of the book, titled Mother and Daughter, which was about the mother and daughter that kind of like, briefly, was talked about in previous stories. And it's in this section that we learn that you can only travel through time once, which, I mean, is another rule, where it's like, it makes the time traveling feel so like, intentional.
All these rules make it feel like, to agree to go time traveling or to like finally come to a decision that you want to go back to the past, you have to be so certain about what you want to do, who you want to see, you have to have thought through it for a long time or at least feel like in your soul like this is the right decision before you make it.
It's not a decision you can just make on a whim. And it's in this section, this story, where it feels like that message of going back to the past, or in this case, the future, which we learn you can go back to the future, which is crazy, is really just about gaining closure. Like, that is what this whole time traveling business is about.
And in this story where the mother is pregnant and her body, her heart is weak, so she knows that if she gives birth to this baby, either she will die, and the baby will live, or they both will die. Like, someone's gonna die. It's so... It's so heartbreaking because it's like okay, so the mother wants to go to the future to see her child and basically to meet her, but there's no guarantee that she will meet her her daughter because the baby might die in the process of giving birth.
So she goes to the future hoping to gain closure. I think what she really wanted to gain closure about was making sure that her child was happy. Because she knew that if her child did live, that she wouldn't be around to see it. So I think she just wanted to know that her child would be happy. And that she made the right decision to give birth to her.
Well, I don't even, I don't even think that's true. Cause she doesn't like, she knows that giving like birth to her kid is like, that's what she wants to do. So I don't even think she's like, it's about like whether it's the right decision or not. I think it's just about like, you know, reassuring her that even if she's feeling kind of selfish for giving birth to a child that she'll never be able to raise herself, that she's basically leaving motherless, right, before her life has even begun.
Making sure that it is not impacting her life to the point where she's unhappy and not living a happy life. And she finally decides to go to the future, because she's kind of going back and forth, back and forth. Like, should I go to the future, should I not, I don't know, like, is it, I don't know. But she decides to because she talks about the wife and the older sister in both stories, where she said that even though their present hasn't changed, the people who went to the past, they came back to the present with a changed heart. So it was like, it kind of like made their reality easier to deal with.
Even if the boyfriend is still going to leave for America. Even if the husband will still forget his wife. Even if the younger sister will still die. The people who went back to the past to see those people, they came back feeling more at peace with their life. And so with all these stories together the book ends.
No acknowledgments or anything, no author's note or anything at the end. The book ends and it asks you the question again. It says, "at the end of the day, whether one returns to the past or travels to the future, the present does not change. So it raises the question, just what is the point of that chair?"
What is the point of going back to the past or going to the future if nothing is going to change? The point is that you change. Your perspective on life and how you go about living it changes. Maybe you return with a sense of peace. Most of them return with a sense of inner peace that they wouldn't have had before traveling through time.
And going back to what I said at the beginning of the episode that I would want to travel back in time to meet my younger self, I think it's still true because I think that is really what I'm searching for. That inner peace that only my younger self would be able to provide me. I feel like my older self wouldn't be able to provide me that sense of peace that my younger self would because it feels like, you know, as you get older, life and you become more and more corrupted, tainted by what you, the way you think things should go or how you prioritize things.
It becomes all skewed and weird. But when you're younger, things just seem so simple. Like just do the things that make you happy. And I wonder if I would recognize myself. I feel like I would. There's no way for me not to, I look literally the same. But I kind of wish, like if I went back in the past to meet my younger self I wish that I didn't recognize myself so I could ask myself— or talk about what I'm doing with in my life right now and see what my younger self would like think.
And part of me knows how I would react because I guess my younger self is still me, like it's still within myself, but I want to look into my eyes as a kid and I want to hear my voice as a kid and remind myself who I really am, like at my core, who I used to be.
To reacquaint myself with my inner child.
This book was amazing. I really loved it. I really loved it. It was just such a comforting book. So comforting. Almost like, It's almost like taking a visit to a cafe. Where you just feel like at peace, you know, everyone is still, there's not a lot of movement and worry about going to the next thing then the next thing. Everyone is just like kind of existing within that moment. That doesn't go for all cafes, but like the cafe vibe that i'm talking about in this book.
That's what i'm talking about. Anyway, make sure to follow the podcast on instagram @jumblepodcast also on tiktok and youtube at that same handle.
I'm feeling kind of zen now. Like that book made me honestly feel like I like I went to yoga class. That was like a free yoga class.
I wonder what you guys would do if you could go back in time.
Who would you meet? Who would you meet if you could go back?