The Neighbour’s Window
Iyore recounts how easy it is to get lost in a plethora of expectations, hopes, and wants. In this piece, she explains the need to appreciate our individual journeys, especially in 2025.
It’s a day after Christmas, and family came over today. So it has been much louder than it normally would but it’s okay. It’s okay now, at least. I didn’t like having people over some years ago, but now I do. I’m not sure what changed, but one day, I woke up and found a growing appreciation for it in my heart, and it has been that way ever since.
Today, I stumbled on a YouTube video titled The Neighbour’s Window, which I saw was an Oscar Award-winning short film. If anything, I normally might have passed along, but I was intrigued by its award, but even more so by its 18 million views on YouTube. So I stayed.
In this little over twenty-minute drama, a middle-aged woman and her husband, Alli, and Jacob, had become frustrated with their own lives; navigating having 3 young kids was a feat they weren’t quite conquering, but they were pushing through either way. Up until a much younger, free-spirited couple moves into the apartment building opposite them, just across the street, and you guys know abroad people do not fancy curtains, so their apartment was entirely see-through.
Alli and Jacob started covertly spying on this younger couple, whose apartment had now become a reminder of a loss of youthfulness and exuberance that they didn’t even realise they had lost amidst navigating their lives as parents. They watched this couple have friends over almost every weekend, genuinely laugh and be with each other, and then not to talk of the sex they were having every night. The difference between both couple's lives was stark and so envy and jealousy slowly started to seep into Alli and Jacob’s hearts, especially Alli’s. A desire for what these strangers in the window across the street had and a belittling of what was their own.
Jacob pointed out how the young man in the other apartment looked more drunk with each passing day so he stopped watching. But not Alli; the reminder of who she used to be was too right in front of her for her to ignore. So she stayed with her tiny binoculars every night. Until she noticed that the young man, whom her husband described as looking drunk, was actually sick and had grown pale.
Some scenes later, his body was being put in a bodybag, and he was wheeled out of the room while his wife was crying in the corner. Alli, who was now too stunned for words, rushed out of her apartment building and walked to this other building that had now become such a tangible part of her life that she shared in this other woman’s grief.
This young woman was crying on the sidewalk as she watched the ambulance that came to pick up her husband’s body drive off. They both have a conversation in which the young woman reveals how, ever since her husband got sick, they both found love and comfort in watching Alli’s family through the window, knowing that having a family was something they desired but would never come to have.
Alli and Jacob didn’t realize the inside of their window was just as beautiful.
In more ways than one, this short film reminded me of myself and the numerous times I have longed and desired for something else so much that what was right in front of me became small and almost inconsequential in my eyes. It reminded me of us as people and how insatiable we are sometimes—how easy it is to define our reality through the lens of another and how easy it is to stop seeing the value in our own journey simply because it is not yet the ‘highlight reel’ we want it to be, or worse, it doesn’t look like someone else’s highlight reel.
Coming into a new year comes with its burst of energy: 'Oh, I want to do this’, ‘Become this', ‘Try this out’, and whilst the desire for something new and different is great, I hope instead that every day you are cognizant of your journey, that you are aware of the paths that have led you here and you feel a deep sense of gratitude for it. This is not shoving gratitude down your neck, but to actually think about it. The days you are in now are days you once longed for. For example, I remember how much I wished I was in my final year during the second bout of the ASUU strike that happened in the year I was supposed to have graduated. The point is you are not where you used to be, and in months from now, you will not be in this same place. Don’t let comparison steal from you; water the garden that is your life.
So, while you are going after the new things you hope to do in 2025 or continuing the things you started in 2024—or perhaps this whole new year thing is meh to you—I hope, we hope, that in many ways, you pause to appreciate your journey and be okay with where you are at. You are okay; you are actually okay and you are doing well.
I am excited for 2025! I am excited for you! Send a final-year student money this year, okay?
Happy New Year from all of us at APSoUL!
Love,
Iyore Elegon,
Managing Editor, APSoUL.
In The Lab
The holidays are officially over, and it’s welcome to 2025—and all the incoures that come with it! We’re excited to show you what we have in store for this year, and we definitely will roll them out in a bit. Get ready!