day #23: happy birthday nick carraway

i was half as old as i am now when i read the great gatsby for the first time. i was 15, and i couldn't think beyond my 16th birthday (driving!!) let alone my 30th. it was 10th grade and i was in mrs. stanley's english class. i had bangs, braces, and a learners permit. i had my whole life ahead of me with a past rooted only in childhood, and the promises of a future beyond the awkward walls of adolescence.

the great gatsby is riddled with complex themes that go far beyond what most high schoolers can understand, because 15 is not long enough to have experienced them. obsession, drinking, money, self-delusion, lies, love. to have had something you so desperately wanted that didn't pan out. to experience raw and deep emotions: happiness, disappointment, love, and loss, maybe wanting at some times to manipulate the past to know then what you know now so you might be able to change it. but the beauty of life lies in the fact that we learn to adapt and move forward. i once read a beautiful quote from author tom stoppard that sums this up:

“We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered.”

the downfall of gatsby comes in his desire to recreate the past. i admit that at some points in my life, i have felt this way. i mean i feel like we all have those thoughts at one point or another. if only i had done this instead of that, turned left instead of right, dated him instead if the other guy, maybe things would have been different. maybe i'd have 3 kids and a house in the burbs, or maybe i'd live in another country, or maybe something whacky would have happened like i'd be in jail or something. but life has given me amazing things. new york city, freelance, travels, and everything on that list before beginning this challenge and beyond, fulfilling dreams i had and those i never knew i wanted. 

so today, i really didn't accomplish a 'challenge' per se. but sometimes, the best thing you can do for yourself is to see a great movie with a great friend, and reflect on the amazing week of experiences that you've had so far in this countdown to 30.

"I was thirty. Before me stretched the portentous menacing road of a new decade...Thirty-the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning brief-case of enthusiasm, thinning hair." - Nick Carraway, The Great Gatsby

day 23 - complete.

xoxo
meags