I posted this Sunday night on Instagram. This combination of a line from one of my favorite books and a photo I took while driving home one evening perfectly captured a realization I had that day.
I am Daisy Buchanan. Most people who read "The Great Gatsby" develop a strong distaste for the main female character. She's vapid. She stays with a man who abuses her. She cheats on her husband. She neglects her daughter. She plays the men in her life against each other. She kills a woman. She lets the love of her life take the fall. The movie versions of the book turn her into a ditz.
I once held these negative views about this fictional woman. They have evolved over time as the path of my life has taken me far from the one I initially envisioned for myself. I started to empathize with her and see her humanity, and most recently I saw her as a woman trapped by the expectations of everyone else. It doesn't change the morality of her actions, but it does make her more real.
Scott Fitzgerald used real people and events and conversations as the foundations for his characters, and I believe that's the source of their reality. They were people who lived and breathed and make some horribly bad decisions. So do I. So do you.
All of this takes me to the events of Sunday evening. I will yada yada over the details, but as I reflected on all of it, the line in the photo hit me with the brunt of its force. I'm careless. I jump into situations without completely thinking them through. I let people down. I react out of my desperation because sometimes it just feels good and sometimes I feel like I have no other recourse. Then I retreat.
Even now I cannot put into words what this force is. The truth is that I'm probably not supposed to assign words to it. As a teenager and young adult, I passed judgment on Daisy for not living up to my own expectations of her...a woman whose life I don't have to live. Today, people do the same to me. I will never be able to explain it to people who don't feel it. It's my story to tell, and I think if I do it well enough to warrant unsolicited commentary, perhaps I've done my job.
Our lives don't have to make sense to others. They just have to make sense to us.
I am Daisy Buchanan. Most people who read "The Great Gatsby" develop a strong distaste for the main female character. She's vapid. She stays with a man who abuses her. She cheats on her husband. She neglects her daughter. She plays the men in her life against each other. She kills a woman. She lets the love of her life take the fall. The movie versions of the book turn her into a ditz.
I once held these negative views about this fictional woman. They have evolved over time as the path of my life has taken me far from the one I initially envisioned for myself. I started to empathize with her and see her humanity, and most recently I saw her as a woman trapped by the expectations of everyone else. It doesn't change the morality of her actions, but it does make her more real.
Scott Fitzgerald used real people and events and conversations as the foundations for his characters, and I believe that's the source of their reality. They were people who lived and breathed and make some horribly bad decisions. So do I. So do you.
All of this takes me to the events of Sunday evening. I will yada yada over the details, but as I reflected on all of it, the line in the photo hit me with the brunt of its force. I'm careless. I jump into situations without completely thinking them through. I let people down. I react out of my desperation because sometimes it just feels good and sometimes I feel like I have no other recourse. Then I retreat.
Even now I cannot put into words what this force is. The truth is that I'm probably not supposed to assign words to it. As a teenager and young adult, I passed judgment on Daisy for not living up to my own expectations of her...a woman whose life I don't have to live. Today, people do the same to me. I will never be able to explain it to people who don't feel it. It's my story to tell, and I think if I do it well enough to warrant unsolicited commentary, perhaps I've done my job.
Our lives don't have to make sense to others. They just have to make sense to us.
Comments