LESSONS
It’s normal to not feel fulfilled even after you get your dream job and dream apartment.
Poppy experiences professional burnout years after working in New York as a travel influencer for a magazine.
She thought that leaving her boring hometown in Ohio and having all-expenses-paid trips around the world would give her lasting happiness, but it doesn’t.
Her friend Rachel assures her that it’s normal to feel depressed after you complete goals, leaving you longing for more.
“Think about it. All the pictures I post? They’re selling something. A lifestyle. People look at those pictures and think, ‘If only I had those Sonia Rykiel heels, that gorgeous apartment with the French oak herringbone floors, then I’d be happy. I’d swan about, watering my houseplants and lighting my endless supply of Jo Malone candles, and I’d feel my life in perfect harmony. I’d finally love my home. I’d relish my days on this planet’” (22).
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One way to combat depression is to think about the last time you were happy and recreate that situation.
Poppy realizes that the last time she was truly happy was two years ago on a Croatia trip with her (ex) best-friend Alex (who she had a long history with and was someone she could truly be herself around).
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Opposites can attract.
Take Poppy Wright and Alex Nilsen for example.
“We are two fundamentally incompatible people with absolutely no need to impress each other. // So I have no problem saying, ‘Khakis just make a person look like they’re both pantsless and void of a personality.’ // ‘They’re durable, and they match everything,’ Alex argues” (49-50).
“The Nilsens aren’t a huggy bunch, as opposed to the Wrights, who are known to grab, elbow, slap, rustle, and nudge for emphasis during any conversation, no matter how mundane. Touching is such second nature to me that once I accidentally hugged my dishwasher repairman when I let him out of my apartment, at which point he graciously told me he was married, and I congratulated him” (65).
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Responding to questions in an unexpected way can be hilarious.
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When Poppy asks Alex what he’s at U of C for, he repeats “Here for?”, and before she clarifies that she meant to ask what he is studying, she first says:
“Yeah, you know… like, I’m here to meet a wealthy oil baron in need of a much younger second wife” (33).
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When Poppy asks Alex for an aux cord while they’re carpooling home to Ohio together, Alex asks why, and before she clarifies that she wants to listen to music, she first says:
“Because I want to see if I can jump rope while wearing a seat belt” (42).
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People tend to act more carefree and spontaneously on vacations.
“On vacation, you can be anyone you want… On vacation, you strike up conversations with strangers, and forget that there are ant stakes. If it turns out impossibly awkward, who cares? You’ll never see them again!” (1).
“It’s the very fact that it’s finite that makes traveling special. You could move to any one of those destinations you loved in small doses, and it wouldn’t be the spellbinding, life-altering seven days you spent there as a guest, letting a place into your heart fully, letting it change you” (312).
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Can guys and girls remain close friends (to the point of taking one-on-one annual summer trips together) without it hurting anyone? (This is a friends-to-lovers book after all.)
Sarah (Alex’s girlfriend) feels jealous of Alex’s time with Poppy.
Alex’s feelings get hurt on the Croatia trip because he drunkenly reveals his feelings to Poppy but the two realize that they probably wouldn’t work out (since he wants to settle down with a steady but low-paying teaching job and marriage and kids, but Poppy wants to live in the moment and travel the world and meet new people and try new experiences).
The distance that Alex creates between him and Poppy after the Croatia trip then hurts Poppy, since she lost her best friend.
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True connection takes time to develop.
After Alex and Poppy part ways from the trip that Poppy “tricked” him into going on (in hopes of rekindling their friendship), Poppy realizes how a true connection developed between them (that triumphs other connections she’s had with other people) because they genuinely cared about each other and took the time to make memories together.
“For the first time in my life, the airport strikes me as the loneliest place in the world. // All those people, parting ways, going off in their own directions, crossing paths with hundreds of people but never connecting” (318).
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Poppy realizes that her love for Alex is more important than traveling, her dream job, her apartment, or the city she’s living in.
“I loved running my blog… I loved it so much, and I thought it was because I loved traveling -- which I do. But in the last few years, everything changed. I wasn’t happy. Traveling felt different. And maybe you were sort of right that I came at you like you were a Band-Aid that could fix everything. Or whatever -- a fun destination to give me a dopamine rush and a new perspective… // I was trying to figure out why it feels so different now, and I was listing all the differences between my life then and now, and it wasn’t just you. I mean, you’re the biggest one. You were on those trips, and then you weren’t, but that wasn’t the only change. All those trips we took, the best thing about them -- other than doing it all with you -- was the people… // I loved meeting new people… I loved… feeling connected. Feeling interesting. Growing up here, I was so f****** lonely, and I always felt like there was something wrong with me. But I told myself if I went somewhere else, it would be different. There’d be other people like me… // So I escaped. And when Chicago didn’t fix it for me, I left there too. Once I started traveling, though, things finally felt better. I met people, and -- I don’t know, without the baggage of history or the fear of what would happen, it felt so much easier to open up to people. To make friends. I know it sounds pathetic, but all those little chance encounters we had -- those made me less lonely. Those made me feel like I was someone people could love. And then I got the R+R job, and the trips changed; the people changed. I only met chefs and hotel managers, people wanting write-ups. I’d go on amazing trips, but I’d come home feeling empty. And now I realize it’s because I wasn’t connecting to anyone. // …Even if I quit my job and started taking the blog seriously again, went back to meeting all the Bucks and Litas and Mathildes of the world -- it’s not going to make me happy. // I needed those people, because I felt alone. I thought I had to run hundreds of miles away from here to find some place to belong. I spent my whole life thinking anyone outside my family who got too close, saw too much, wouldn’t want me anymore. The safest thing was those quick, serendipitous moments with strangers. That’s all I thought I could have. // And then there was you… I love you so much that I’ve spent twelve years putting as much distance between us as I could. I moved. I traveled. I dated other people. I talked about Sarah all the f****** time because I knew you had a crush on her, and it felt safer that way. Because the last person I could take being rejected by was you. // And now I know that. I know it’s not traveling that’s gonna get me out of this slump and it’s not a new job and it’s sure as hell not chance encounters with water taxi drivers. All of that, every minute of it, has been running away from you, and I don’t want to do that anymore… // I want to stay in New York… I like it there, and I think you would too, but you asked me what I’d be willing to give up for you, and now I know the answer is: everything. // …You’re not a vacation, and you’re not the answer to my career crisis, but when I’m in a crisis or I’m sick or I’m sad, you’re the only thing I want. And when I’m happy, you make me so much happier. I still have a lot to figure out, but the one thing I know is, wherever you are, that’s where I belong. I’ll never belong anywhere like I belong with you. No matter what I’m feeling, I want you next to me. You’re home to me, Alex” (346 - 349).
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Alex confesses how he’s scared of how love can require him to take chances.
“I know if I got on a plane with you back to New York, I would be so f****** happy. For as long as you’d have me, I’d be happy. // …And I want that so badly. I do regret every chance I missed to tell you how I felt, all the times I convinced myself I’d lose you if you really knew, or that we we’re too different. I want to just be happy with you. But I’m afraid of what comes after… // I’m afraid of you realizing I bore you. Or meeting someone else. Or being unhappy and staying. And… I’m afraid of loving you for our entire lives, and then having to say goodbye. I’m afraid of you dying, and the world feeling useless. I’m afraid I won’t be able to keep getting out of bed if you’re gone, and if we had kids, they’d have these horrible lives where their amazing mom is gone, and their dad can’t look at them” (354-355).
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True love requires total acceptance of one another.
“I feel broken too… I’ve always felt like once someone sees me deep down, that’s it. There’s something ugly in there, or unlovable, and you’re the only person who’s ever made me feel like I’m okay… There’s nothing scarier than the chance that, once you really have all of me, that changes. But I want all of you, so I’m trying to be brave” (303).
“Wherever he is, that will be my favorite place. // …Tomorrow we will love each other a little more, and the next day, and the next day. // And even on those days when one or both of us is having a hard time, we’ll be here, where we are completely known, completely accepted, by the person whose every side we love whole-heartedly. I’m here with all the versions of him I’ve met over twelve years of vacations, and even if the point of life isn’t just being happy, right now, I am. Down to the bones” (361).