Before the Epilogue: What 1996 Felt Like

A reflection on the emotional space between the final chapter of The Wake of Expectations and what comes after.

⚠️ Note: This post contains thematic reflections on the closing emotional space of The Wake of Expectations. No major plot details are revealed, but those who haven't finished the novel may prefer to read it first.

There’s a stretch of time in my life I think about often—but only in feeling, rarely in words. It wasn’t the most dramatic period. No big explosions. No grand finales. Just a slow, almost imperceptible shift. The end of one version of myself and the quiet, uncertain beginning of another.

In The Wake of Expectations, the main narrative ends—deliberately—not with closure, but with an emotional pause. There’s a time jump before the epilogue. This piece lives in that space between. That moment in life when you're not quite young anymore, but not fully formed either. When you know you’re on a path, and you’re wondering if it’s the right one—or if there’s still time to change it.

For me, that space—the mid-’90s, specifically 1996—is best understood through two cultural touchstones: Del Amitri and Kicking and Screaming. That band and that film are my shorthand for what it felt like to be alive then. They capture something I didn’t have the language for at the time: a kind of weary hopefulness. A post-college emotional hangover. The ache of potential without direction.

Kicking and Screaming is a different kind of coming-of-age story: young men frozen in place, too smart and self-aware to romanticize the future, but not quite brave enough to let go of the past. It’s messy, meandering, full of unresolved relationships and clever dialogue masking deeper emotional paralysis. It doesn’t tell you how to grow up—it just shows you what it feels like to be stuck trying.

Noah Baumbach captured something so true about that moment in time. It’s a film that’s stayed with me in a quiet, profound way—less for what happens in it, and more for how deeply it understood what it felt like to wait for your life to begin.

I remember exactly where I was when I first saw Del Amitri on David Letterman, performing “Always the Last to Know.” Dave seemed to like them—maybe not effusive, but genuinely appreciative. What stood out was the performance itself: stripped down to just three members, with Justin Currie stepping away from his usual role on bass to sing up front. Will Lee from the World’s Most Dangerous Band handled bass duties that night, which gave Currie space to move differently—to inhabit the vocal. Not flashy, just more present.

They emerged at a time when grunge was fully ascendant, dominating the rock conversation and the airwaves. But Del Amitri offered a different kind of alternative—more thoughtful, more melodic. They weren’t a holdover from the '80s glam rock I’d grown up loving, nor were they part of the noisy revolution that was displacing it. Their sound felt more aligned with the classic rock I had been gravitating toward—more grounded, more lyrical, more human. In that moment, they gave me a path forward musically. A new kind of honesty that didn’t require shouting.

Del Amitri wasn’t cool. Not in the way grunge was cool. But they were honest. Songs like “Driving with the Brakes On” and “When You Were Young” didn’t shout. They sat with you. They looked you in the eye. They understood a different kind of longing—not just for love, but for clarity. For self-acceptance.

And “When You Were Young” in particular—there was something strange and quietly devastating about hearing a song like that while I was still, technically, young. It asked a question I wasn’t ready to answer: Would your younger self be proud of who you’ve become? I was still becoming. But I already felt the weight of that question. Because that’s the thing about that age—you can feel yourself shifting from the boundless freedom of youth to the quiet realization that you’re now on a path. You haven’t arrived, but you can see where it’s going. And you wonder: Do I really want this? And more urgently: Is there still time to change?

You could still jump to a new path. But now, it would cost you something.

It’s not too late. But it’s not early.

You’re not old. But you’re not wide-eyed anymore.

You’re caught in the middle. Trying to come to terms with a life that’s beginning to take shape—whether you meant it to or not.

That was me in 1996.

Still young, but not for much longer.

Still lost, but wanting to be found.

And in The Wake of Expectations, that’s where we leave Calvin—right before the epilogue. Not with certainty. But with movement. With the first flicker of something new.

Del Amitri. Kicking and Screaming.

David Letterman at midnight.

The last gasp of youth.

And the beginning of something I couldn’t yet name.

Further Viewing

• Del Amitri performs “Always the Last to Know” on Late Night with David Letterman (1992):
  Watch on YouTube

• Kicking and Screaming (1995) – Official Trailer:
  Watch on YouTube

Javier

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