I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine about the ending of my novel manuscript. She said to me that while she liked it, until the very very last scene, she was still holding out hope that it would end happily. Full disclosure. I don’t know if I’d call the ending of my novel happy as in romantic comedy happy. It’s much more, what is the word—bittersweet? Redemptive? As a writer, I feel a deep sense of responsibility to follow my characters and their storylines to an ending that feels true, whether it ends happily or not. But as a person, I was jumping for joy. I knew that when she said that, I had found a kindred spirit.
Fast forward a few weeks and I’m in the middle of a Korean drama on Netflix called Hometown Cha Cha Cha. I don’t know what exactly made me want to watch it. I mean, the last Korean drama I watched was My Lovely Sam-Soon, and that was like ages ago. I’m not naive. I know how it is with Korean dramas. A few minutes here and I am going to be stuck in front of that dang tv screen for the rest of the season. Still, I thought I could do it. After all, it’s only 16 episodes, right? But here’s the kicker—they only release like two a week. What that means is that I can’t watch the ending beforehand.
Yes, if you must know, I am one of those people. I try very hard to read a book from the first page all the way through. And there are books where I have actually succeeded. But more often than not, I’m going to skip ahead to the end. At first, I thought it was my short attention span. You know,
that need to move things along. I’m a busy person. But I’m beginning to see that it’s more than that.
As I’ve been watching Hometown Cha Cha Cha, I’m starting to realize that I don’t like the middle. It’s lovely to watch a series start up. You get introduced to all these interesting characters and in this series, they are all laugh out loud funny, especially the old women. I aspire to have the kind of honesty that makes people cringe when I’m eighty. But after all that feel good introduction wears off, we’re in the middle. I don’t like the middle. It’s where things go wrong, where there are love triangles that can leave you in perpetual anxiety until the next episode. And if it doesn’t end happily after all that turmoil? Can I just say that I hate the middle!
But the thing is, the middle is actually where all the good stuff happens. And I think maybe that’s true for life too. Think about the hardest things you’ve gone through, like this pandemic. We’ve been in the middle for a long, long time, people. I hope that after some time has passed, we’ll be able to look back and see that these hard experiences are really what have shaped us into the people we are today and will be in the future.
So, I’m going to make friends with the middle, not just with this Korean drama but also in my life. I’m going to sit with that discomfort, that uncertainty. In the end, I hope it’ll make the next phase of my life that much sweeter. But that Korean drama better end happily. Just saying.