The Great Gatsby
I was recently talking with a couple of other ladies, when one of them, several years into her 50s, suddenly proclaimed that "we've peaked." My initial reaction was to want to shoot back with, "Speak for yourself!" After all, I just turned 50 at the end of December, and everything in me cried out in rejection of this proclamation. I don't remember the context of the conversation, but my friend was referring to our status of beauty. I ended up responding, "You haven't known me very long. How do you know this isn't the best I've ever been?"
There was no answer to that question, but the comment lingered with me. A few days later, I woke up thinking of the fictional character Jay Gatsby, from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, set in 1922. I told my husband about it, reflecting on this man's remarkable reinvention of himself. "But Gatsby died," Husband insisted. Yet despite the tragic outcome of his efforts to obtain great wealth, glamour and status to win back Daisy Buchanan, the former flame of his younger, impoverished years, I replied that Gatsby's was nevertheless a brilliant reinvention.
Jay Gatsby never exactly lied about his life and the origins of his wealth. His real name was James Gatz, so he kept pretty close to it. In the melting pot of America it wasn't unusual for family names to have been altered to sound less ethnic, so the jazzing up of his name wasn't particularly deceptive. He claimed to have inherited his money, which originally was true, but the inheritance was contested and taken from him. He also called himself an "Oxford man." While he didn't graduate from Oxford, he did spend several months there while serving in the military. His current wealth was earned by less than legal enterprises, but he was simply vague about the details of his business. Exotic rumors abounded about this mysterious tycoon, adding to his allure. He threw lavish party after party and was the toast of New York society.
Jackie Kennedy came to mind, and how I had heard that she may have exaggerated her French heritage for the sake of her chic image. Don't we all strive to show ourselves to the world in the best possible light? Perhaps if we focused more energy on our goals and put our imaginations to better use, the life we dream might come closer to being the life we have...
Poor Gatsby was a dreamer, living in the past while at the same time attempting to rewrite the story, and projecting his illusions on his married lover. While he may not be the most ideal person to wish to emulate, there's much to be gleaned from his knack for reinventing one's "brand." His character is immensely relatable--an incurable romantic, desperately searching for meaning in his life, striving to recapture the happiness of the past and reconcile it with his present reality. And set in the vivid Jazz Age of the 1920s, it appeals to my nostalgic attraction to all things vintage.
Jay Gatsby never gave up hope. He believed to the end. One of my plans for Lent this year, which begins in three days, is to embark on a radical reinvention. Will I change my name? Maybe. What I'm thinking is that no one else should get to decide that you have "peaked," that you've hit the height of your beauty or anything else, and the rest is all downhill. In fact, the idea of peaking is just plain silly. Imagine if Grandma Moses, having decided she had peaked, had never started painting at all! My belief is that women need to give up betraying themselves and one another. I will be exploring how we betray ourselves and what to do about it in the coming weeks.
Have you ever embarked on a reinvention of your life? What were the results? Please share your experiences in the comments!
