Expiration Dates

Content Warning: This section discusses failure, chronic illness, and medical trauma.

The notes Daphne receives that tell her how long she will stay with each man she dates are both the explicit premise of the plot and a symbol of Daphne’s perceptions of her own life. The notes form the magical realism element of the narrative while also representing Daphne’s reluctance to invest in her relationships and her attempts to measure her life in concrete, knowable spans of time. Daphne believes that by telling her how long she has in each relationship, the notes promise that she will not die in that span of time. Because of this, she believes that she has “a different set of rules to live by” than the average person and that her relationships and their ends are dictated by fate rather than her own choice (9).

However, it becomes clear that Daphne uses the notes as an excuse to not invest in her relationships. She believes that the notes tell her “when to invest, and for how long” (28). She holds herself back, does not share her life or her heart, and makes no effort to maintain her relationships beyond the end she believes to be predestined. Thus, though she claims that the notes are a promise for her future, representing her hopes for a long-term “epic love,” they are functionally the opposite, ultimately representing her fears. She is afraid of being fully seen by those she loves and vice versa, she is afraid of wanting too much from her relationships, and she is afraid of not knowing how long she will live. Therefore, she uses the notes as an excuse to hold herself back. Ultimately, she allows the note at the end of the novel to blow past her, revealing her decision to let go of certainty and submit to vulnerability and love.