Future Nostalgia

 "When something good happens to you at that age, you can't settle with the notion that it's a one-off. You want it to be the beginning of a tradition. That's how I felt about that night: I wanted it already to be a memory, a foundational one, a first evening of many similar evenings. I wanted future nostalgia, a rear-view, years-old fondness for something that had literally just happened"

-The Rachel Incident, Caroline O'Donahue

This book is one of the most satisfying books I have ever read. I feel like with the advent of #booktok and Goodreads, reading for pleasure has re-entered the zeitgeist as a competitive sport. I get these newsletters from Dua Lipa every several weeks, in which she is dressed in something tight and sparkly, rouged lips and long shiny fingernails, holding a literary monument in her hands. Reading is sexy again.

Do it. Newspaper is out. It's all about books. Everyone who's anyone has a book.

- Samantha, Sex and the City, Season 5, Episode 2

There are so many moments I have had over the past year that have felt like Rachel's evening at the Harrington-Byrnes'. Dancing with the motley crew of engineers at UN Plaza. Conquering Mortal Kombat on an arcade machine at some strangers' graduation party. Doubling over with laughter in the middle of a random parking lot with two of my closest friends after dinner. Waking up to a nuzzle from a floofy cat with no concept of personal space. There were so many moments that felt like home, over the span of several cities, none of which I put on my residency application as my "hometown" 

I am tired of feeling like I constantly have to start over. Constantly ending and entering new relationships, platonic and otherwise. Constantly trying to find my footing in the ocean, just for my feet to brush the top of a floating rock. 

I don't really know where my place is in the world. I've made the mistake of convincing myself that I am special, and that I have some special purpose in the world. This likely is the source of all of my restlessness. I have convinced myself that there's more out there.

What I love about the Rachel Incident, is how O'Donahue weaves magic into the mundane, in a way that makes you believe in the dreams these two twenty-something year olds have for each other. For themselves. For their lovers. We want to believe that it will all work out. The affairs, the finances, the art, the books
We want to believe that everything will fall into place, that everything will be wrapped up in a neat and beautiful bow. And right when things seem to be going right, when James and Rachel and Dr. Byrne are dancing on their kitchen tile, drinking cheap wine

we feel like it is

until it isnt

O'Donahuei s brilliant. All these streaming services should take note, The Rachel Incident would be not only a phenomenal screenplay, but a phenomenal cultural moment.