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✰ Note: this letter contains some spoilers!
Last month I read Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was incredibly verbose, which left me struggling at times to get through it. I did love parts of it. Like this quote that met me at the right time:
“His love for Nicole and Rosemary, his friendship with Abe North, with Tommy Barban in the broken universe of the war’s ending—in such contacts the personalities had seemed to press up so close to him that he became the personality itself—there seemed some necessity of taking all or nothing; it was as if for the remainder of his life he was condemned to carry with him the egos of certain people, early met and early loved, and to be only as complete as they were complete themselves. There was some element of loneliness involved—so easy to be loved—so hard to love.”
For those who haven’t read the story, it’s about a psychiatrist named Dick Diver who falls in love with and weds his patient Nicole. I believe he never truly loved her. He saw her fortune as an opportunity. Fitzgerald carries the reader through tragedy, some awful decisions between the couple, and Dick’s decline.
I wonder why Fitzgerald used the word condemned as if carrying these personalities was a lifelong punishment and not a choice. I guess I cannot feel sympathy for a man who is willingly participating in his ruin. Maybe because I cannot sympathize with myself for when I had done the same. Dick chose to stay married to Nicole when letting go seemed to be the healthy option, the only option. The juxtaposition of knowing something needs to end and continuing to hold on. I hope to feel okay with the fact that many phases of life along with the people in them are temporary. I hope to enjoy it while it lasts.