“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past”

I watched the most recent version of the film, The Great Gatsby, last week. I read the book in high school and viewed both versions of the movie multiple times. For some reason this viewing resonated with me in a way that hasn’t happened in the past. Maybe it’s because my boat has hit a section of very strong current recently and continuing to paddle through it, upstream and into the future, has proven exhausting. I’ve had to take a little break and the current has carried me back to the past, where I no longer wish to go.

Gatsby wants to escape the self-proclaimed label he identifies with and to be accepted by an affluent group of people. This acceptance, in his mind at least, will signify that he is worthy of Daisy’s love and affection. Success, adulation, and possessing Daisy will validate Gatsby’s desire to be something different than what his inner monologue suggests. The problem exists though in that nothing can supplant the identity burned into his subconscious, of not being good enough, and he loses himself, yet again, to the selfish impulses of the one he falsely believes can provide salvation.

Damn can I relate to that. It’s been written about in previous posts and I won’t go to great lengths to rehash it all now. Currently I’m reading a book called Unbroken Brain, by Maia Szalavitz, about addiction. In it, she talks about the root of the majority of addictions being maladaptive coping mechanisms to trauma and extreme stress in childhood. For the author, her trauma came from believing at a very young age that something was fundamentally wrong with her. This may be a common core belief for many addicts and alcoholics and it certainly was with me.

Several months after my father left my mother for another woman (we’ll call her P), it was my father’s weekend to have us children. Mom left the house and dad came to stay with us. It had happened this way before and I kind of liked having him all to ourselves versus absorbing the negative radiation of the strained relationship when mom and dad were both together. This time, however, dad informed me that P would be spending the weekend too.

I was furious! How dare he bring her to OUR house. I had never met P before and my 11 year old mind was still desperately hoping that mom and dad would reconcile. She came over and I retreated to my room. Proudly displayed on my dresser and shelves were all the things that my father had given me and which I loved: the Dairy Queen football helmets of every NFL team at the time, the autographed baseball in it’s display case, the Hardy Boys books that I collected, my Empire Strikes Back Snowspeeder, and my framed picture of me with my mom, dad, and sisters.

I took all those items and proceeded to tear, break, and otherwise destroy them as best I could, leaving the mess piled upon my bed. I wanted dad to know how upset I was and given that the parental modeling of emotion to that point consisted solely of flash displays of rage, that’s the only way I knew how to express it.

I called my dad into my room so he could see what I had done. He walked into the doorway, shook his head in disgust, then called for P to come in there. She entered without a word, saw the pile of debris that had moments ago been my proudest possessions and listened to my dad say,”look what a great son I have”. He walked out, closing the door behind him, and I fell into a sobbing, convulsing heap on the floor. For two hours I lay next to my bed in the fetal position, trying occasionally to get up, though every time I did my senses were assaulted by the broken items centered on my carefully made up bed.

Upon forcing myself to look at the mess, I would fall back on the floor with thoughts of despair racing through my head. How could I have done that to my father? What did P think of me? And most significant of all, “How could I have done this to the most important possessions that I owned?” Adding to the intrinsic value was the symbolism behind them. My dad and I spent several months dutifully going to Dairy Queen when new helmets came out and we would carefully apply the stickers that signified, along with the color, which team they belonged to. There were two model airplanes that I destroyed and I remember the time we spent at the kitchen table putting them together.

What kind of a monster would do this?

I seriously thought from that point on that something evil was inside me and things never felt the same after. Once the initial shock of what I had done subsided, I next had to go through the process of deciding if anything was salvageable and throwing away things that were not. Most of it had to be thrown away and even seeing the damaged items on display again brought back the shame and despair; eventually it all was designated as trash and placed in the container for things unwanted. Then I was left with barren shelves, a barren dresser, and a barren outlook on what life held for me. No one talked to me about any of this, consoled me, or helped with fixing or disposing of things; my 11 year old brain was left to its own devices.

The funny thing is my father doesn’t even remember this and I’ve been battling against the current of that river my entire life. I was Gatsby and I tried to gain all the material possessions so that S could see what a successful person I was and be proud of me and happy to be married to me.

Even her love wasn’t enough to escape the nagging, disgusted voice of my soul. Look what a great husband you are. Look what a great father you are. Look what a worthless piece of shit you are.

“And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. 

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning——

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”