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I read this expression, "many years into one possible future", but am finding it difficult to understand it. Could you please let me know what it means? Here is the excerpt:
Adriaan was hesitating, he did not want to tell me very much more about whatever had taken place in Lisbon, or perhaps he did not know how to put it into words. He looked suddenly tired, and I understood that what had happened had been its own thing for him, in the way that these past months had been for me, and it occurred to me that many years into one possible future, we might be living together in some state of sustained harmony, that against the odds we might yet have succeeded in growing old together. We could be one of those couples whose mutual understanding had such depth and history that we no longer needed to explain things to each other, our routines set long ago, our knowledge of each other, and of our relationship, absolute. And still we might never have told each other what took place these past two months. This time would remain a blind spot in the rearview mirror of our relationship, around which we would carefully maneuver, until the act of that accommodation became second nature, until we no longer even noticed it.
- Katie Kitamura, Intimacies, Chapter 16
This is a novel published in 2021 in the United States of America. The protagonist is an interpreter working at the International Criminal Court at The Hague. Now she is thinking that perhaps she and her boyfriend Adriaan might succeed in spending the rest of their lives together without Adriaan's explanation about his recent silence.
In this part, I am having difficulties in understanding the underlined noun phrase.
I guess "after" might be omitted before "many years," but then I wonder what "into" might mean.
Would it perhaps mean: "many years would pass, and change into one possible future, and at that moment"...?
(Though this is just my guess.)
Adriaan was hesitating, he did not want to tell me very much more about whatever had taken place in Lisbon, or perhaps he did not know how to put it into words. He looked suddenly tired, and I understood that what had happened had been its own thing for him, in the way that these past months had been for me, and it occurred to me that many years into one possible future, we might be living together in some state of sustained harmony, that against the odds we might yet have succeeded in growing old together. We could be one of those couples whose mutual understanding had such depth and history that we no longer needed to explain things to each other, our routines set long ago, our knowledge of each other, and of our relationship, absolute. And still we might never have told each other what took place these past two months. This time would remain a blind spot in the rearview mirror of our relationship, around which we would carefully maneuver, until the act of that accommodation became second nature, until we no longer even noticed it.
- Katie Kitamura, Intimacies, Chapter 16
This is a novel published in 2021 in the United States of America. The protagonist is an interpreter working at the International Criminal Court at The Hague. Now she is thinking that perhaps she and her boyfriend Adriaan might succeed in spending the rest of their lives together without Adriaan's explanation about his recent silence.
In this part, I am having difficulties in understanding the underlined noun phrase.
I guess "after" might be omitted before "many years," but then I wonder what "into" might mean.
Would it perhaps mean: "many years would pass, and change into one possible future, and at that moment"...?
(Though this is just my guess.)
