This Time Tomorrow

by Emma Straub

“Next time, we’ll have more rules. For both of us.”

There should be several more distinctions: the idiocy of the young twenties, when one was suddenly expected to know how to do adult things; the panicked coupling of the mid- and late twenties, when marriages happened as quickly as a game of tag; the sitcom mom period, when you finally had enough food in your freezer to survive for a month if necessary; the school principal period, when you were no longer seen as a woman at all but just a vague nagging authority figure. If you were lucky, there was the late-in-life sexy Mrs. Robinson period, or an accomplished and powerful Meryl Streep period, followed, of course, by approximately two decades of old-crone-hood, like the woman at the end of Titanic.

“But I will tell you, in terms of a life plan, you don’t need one. That’s my advice. It’s real life. It’s your real life. Plans don’t work. Just go with it.”

Maybe that was the trick to life: to notice all the tiny moments in the day when everything else fell away and, for a split second, or maybe even a few seconds, you had no worries, only pleasure, only appreciation of what was right in front of you. Transcendental meditation, maybe, but with hot dogs and the knowledge that everything would change, the good and the bad, and so you might as well appreciate the good.

The room wanted silence in the same way that a movie theater wanted silence, or a church pew.

The problem with adulthood was feeling like everything came with a timer—a

Even just the concept of cousins felt like bragging—Look at all these people who belong to me. Alice had never felt like she belonged to anyone—or like anyone belonged to her—except

Alice knew that he loved it. The impossible being possible. The limits of reality being pushed beyond what science can fully explain.

like an agnostic who believed in something but not necessarily in God.

Peggy Sue Got Married when Peggy Sue goes for a motorcycle ride with the poet and they have sex on a picnic blanket and then he dedicates his book to her, which is the only thing that happens in the whole movie that implies that the rest of the movie actually happened and wasn’t just a dream?”

Maybe that was the key—telling people exactly what you wanted, the actual truth, and then getting out of the way.

there was only one real mother—Gaia, Mother Earth.

Alice’s hair was still short, and bleached almost white. Her skin was tan, her arms strong. She carried a camera.

There was supposed to be an upside to adulthood, wasn’t there? The period of your life that was your own, and not chosen for you by other people?

he was prone to grumbling, but he turned on the charm when he wanted to, especially with strangers, especially with young people, and women, and bartenders. With most people, really.

Leonard didn’t mind doing things his own way. He had always been exactly who he was, better or worse, take it or leave

“Somewhere Over the Rainbow”

He was in the room when I was born, and I was in the room when he died.