“Wishing You More Happiness Than Can Fit A Person”: We Are Okay by Nina LaCour
“I wonder if there’s a secret current that connects people who have lost something. Not in the way that everyone loses something, but in the way that undoes your life, undoes yourself, so that when you look at your face it isn’t yours anymore” – Marin
How wonderful would it be if everything in life worked out the way we wanted? If things happened the way we expected them to, the way we wanted them to, then there would be no unpleasant surprises. When Marin, the protagonist of We Are Okay by Nina LaCour, was staying in an empty dorm room, dreading the visit of her friend, Mabel, I assumed that the two girls had had a fight. What the fight was about, I couldn’t guess. Much later in the story, when Mabel confronts Marin about her disappearance, Marin can’t bring herself to talk about her experiences, not because she doesn’t want to talk to Mabel, but because talking about it is too much for her. When she is finally able to talk, she tells Mabel about being questioned by the police, about staying at the motel where a woman was constantly wailing, and the man next door kept staring out the window without moving for days, and where Marin felt scared that she would go just as crazy.
This scene struck a chord in my mind. Marin and Mabel had been best friends for years, and had shared so many memories, but at that moment, when Marin and Mabel are sitting across from each other, Mabel is looking at Marin with a look in her eyes that Marin doesn’t recognize. Perhaps this is because the lack of recognition is mutual – Mabel doesn’t recognize Marin either, the two friends have become strangers. What’s sad about this moment is that Mabel had assumed Marin had been okay, but Marin was far from it. What’s worse is that, if Marin had told Mabel, things could have been different for both of Mabel and herself (or am I wrong in assuming this?). Have you ever experienced that feeling? Of thinking that you knew your friend, but finding out that there were so many things you didn’t know about them? And feeling that you have failed them? In this particular scene, I found myself wondering what I would have felt in Mabel’s shoes, rather than relating to Marin, the protagonist, because I have been there. I had stood on the other side, trying to understand the person whom I thought I knew and understood.
In the end, nothing turns out the way Marin may have wanted, or expected, but Marin is going to be okay. I mean, what else is new? Does anything ever happen the way we want?
My favorite quote is when Marin and Mabel are at the store, shopping for Christmas presents, when Marin looks at Mabel, and thinks, “I wish her everything good. A friendly cab driver and short lines through security. A flight with no turbulence and an empty seat next to her. A beautiful Christmas. I wish her more happiness than can fit in a person. I wish her the kind of happiness that spills over.”
<Works Cited>
LaCour, Nina. We Are Okay. Dutton Childrens Books, 2017.
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