Holiday Romance

Their shared Irish heritage plays a big part in how Molly and Andrew first connect. The annual flight home to Ireland is where their friendship—and eventually their romance—begins. Because they both have the same cultural background, there’s an immediate sense of understanding between them, from jokes about family traditions to noticing familiar habits and quirks. The repeated trips give them time to get to know each other, slowly building trust and closeness. Molly and Andrew come from very different parts of Ireland, and their hometowns reveal a lot about who they are. Molly’s Dublin roots in a busy, fast-moving city reflect her ambitious, career-driven personality and her comfort with structure and planning. Andrew’s Cork upbringing, in a quieter, more rural area, mirrors his laid-back, family-focused nature. Ireland thus functions as both a literal homeland and a symbolic landscape of identity, its contrasting geographies mirroring the protagonists’ inner contrasts.

The novel highlights the nuances of contemporary Irish identity through both humor and insight. When Molly exaggerates her “leprechaun” accent to navigate travel mishaps, she playfully leans into her Irishness, using it to her advantage. More seriously, when Andrew reveals that he has recently become sober, Molly reflects, “No one likes the stereotype, but the culture of casual drinking is very much alive in Ireland” (169). Her remark reveals genuine concern, highlighting the tension between cultural expectations and personal choices. Irish social norms shape family life and individual behavior, and she verbalizes some of the challenges Andrew faces in reconciling his identity with his commitment to sobriety. This moment emphasizes that heritage carries not just tradition, but also unseen pressures and complexities.

When they arrive in Dublin by ferry, strangers on the shore wave and call out “Merry Christmas,” and Andrew remarks, “It’s like they’re welcoming you home” (192). This moment captures the warmth and communal spirit of Ireland, showing how home can extend beyond family to a sense of belonging in the broader community. It highlights The Emotional Significance of Homecoming and reinforces the idea that home is as much about connection and shared culture as it is about a physical place. Ireland is the primary goal of their trip, the place they’re trying to get to, but it also stands for their heritage, their family ties, and the traditions that have shaped them. By the novel’s close, Ireland embodies memory and continuity, even as Molly and Andrew choose to root their shared future elsewhere.

Much of the novel unfolds in airports and on airplanes, making air travel a central motif throughout the story. Molly and Andrew’s friendship begins when they serendipitously sit next to each other on a flight home to Dublin. What starts as a casual connection soon develops into a friendship and romance, with their shared flights marking the passage of time in their relationship. Throughout the story, airplanes and airports symbolize the in-between spaces of life, when people are caught between where they’ve been and where they’re going. These transitory settings parallel the emotional limbo of two characters who are still figuring out who they are and what “home” means.

Molly approaches travel the same way she approaches life, with careful planning and control. Each year, she follows the same routine: buying her sister a cheap bottle of perfume, meeting Andrew at the airport, and boarding the flight home to Dublin. The predictability of these rituals gives her a sense of order and stability, especially in a life that often feels chaotic and unfulfilled. As the novel shows, air travel rarely goes perfectly. Flights are delayed, plans change, and sometimes, no matter how carefully she prepares, things go wrong. These disruptions symbolize the unpredictability of life itself. The missed connections and unexpected layovers reflect Molly’s gradual realization that control is an illusion and that no amount of planning can protect her from uncertainty or emotional risk. Just as air travel forces passengers to adapt, wait, reroute, and trust that they’ll eventually reach their destination, Molly learns that The Benefits of Surrendering Control leaves her open to what can unfold.

The unpredictability of airports and flights is a metaphor for growth. Time expands and contracts in strange ways, just as it does in emotional transformation. A long delay might bring frustration, but it also creates space for reflection or connection; a rushed sprint through the terminal represents the urgency of seizing a fleeting chance. Through Andrew and Molly’s experiences, she sees that life’s most meaningful moments often happen in unexpected pauses and in how she responds when those plans fall apart. She laments the disruption, saying, “The whole point of this flight is to spend time with you” (238), when, ironically, the cancelled flight gives them more time together than she could ever have planned. Air travel symbolizes Molly’s emotional journey, beginning as a controlled routine but transforming into an adventure that teaches her to let go, adapt, and find meaning in the unpredictable rhythm of life. The novel ends symbolically where it began, in the airport, except this time Andrew and Molly aren’t flying to Ireland; they’re welcoming their families to Chicago. The epilogue reverses the travel motif, signifying the permanence of Molly and Andrew’s relationship and solidifying Chicago as home.