Everything Sweeps

Everything Everywhere All At Once has swept at the Oscars and while I don't believe the Oscars are indicative of what constitutes as the "best" movie, but I think it's a barometer of what audiences and a group of mostly white people's taste. The fact that this little movie that could of Asian and Asian-American actors swept this academy speaks volumes of how ready we were for a movie like this.

Like many Asian-Americans, my parents were war refugees who came to the US with a chance at a better life not for themselves, but for us, me. They arrived emotionally traumatized, damaged, scarred, and all this translated into how they raised me. They succeeded. I am living my dream here in Copenhagen doing this thing that I love. I wish they could see it.

My mom constantly told me growing up that I was getting fat (or too fat already), and I've come to understand that was her way of caring. I know there were moments she must of been proud, or at least I'd like to think.

I like to think I understand though, I don’t think my parents could look at what they did as wrong. Their best, couldn’t have been the reason for our dysfunction or the reason my sister and I don’t view them as adults we can depend on. Their best couldn’t have been the reason we are as fractured as we are because if they had to look for a moment into that truth, I think it would destroy them knowing their best did so much damage and left so much emotional destruction in their wake.

I don’t talk to my mother anymore. It’s been 523 days since I’ve uttered my last words to her. I’m not naive, she’s a person that does’t take care of herself, she has no friends, her immediate family is as emotionally stunted as her to help her deal with anything, and her pride wouldn’t let her reach out either way. I’ll be genuinely surprised if I hear from her in this lifetime again. Maybe in some other universe there were enough decision made that would of saved our relationship.

I'm glad a movie like Everything Everywhere exists that so accurately captures the everyday for many children of immigrants and the toll of what they endured and passed onto us. It’s a movie about nihilism vs existentialism, generational trauma, and the power of ripple effects of healing when we accept and take accountability. If you haven’t seen it yet, run, don’t walk to see it.