My hundred year old reflection.

Things were horrid back then. My love had left me, I lost one job and the other was starting to become unbearable. To ease my troubled mind, I explored my forgotten items that were imprisoned in the back of my closet, hoping to find anything that would remind me of easier days. When I ran into an old book that was wedged between a duct taped healed binder and the back wall of the closet. As I pulled the book out I thought, "whatever book this is, I'll read it." When I looked at the cover of the book it's title called to me with open arms "The Great Gatsby".

I didn't start reading the book though as I've read it twice for school, simply going back to wallowing in sorrow under the cover if a distant smile and broken laugh. After a week of this I came across a solution in my head to my problem. I decide I would become rich and famous solely to get my love back. To be so big and so grand that she who know where I was and I would be her beacon. It was my hope, my light at the end of a long dark tunnel that no matter what I would reach for. For some reason though my mind knew it would never work, but it didn't stop me and I had my plan. Suddenly I looked back at the old book that had been carelessly thrown on to my bed, and decided to read once more.

Once I started read the book, I didn't stop. The story turning into a movie in my mind, with grand settings flooding my mind yet still depicting New York in the way it always was. Soon though th pages stopped becoming pages but a reflection of muself, and in this beige mirror I see Gatsby as myself. Same ideals, same hope, same quest for love, and same plane to achieve it. But as anyone who has read the story knows, Gatsby's romantic and well meant plan falls apart very quickly, and ends in the worse way possible. As I closed the back cover of the book the reflection faded the now fresh events from almost a hundred years ago play again and again in my mind.

It was all a warning. A cautionary tale of what will happen to me in the future from the past, and all I could do was put the book down. I honestly thought over trying to just stick to my plan, trying to assure myself that wasn't trying to recreate the past, but build a new future. But I was all in vain, I knew I was lying to myself, and that no matter how good, complete, or happy I was. He past is gone and I can't go back. Two months later I finally let it all go, the plans of love, the schemes of fame and fortune, and even the thought of ever seeing my love again. It wasn't easy.

I came across the book again recently as my career is starting to pick up a bit of steam. However Gatsby is no longer a reflection, he still is an influence, helping me keep on the right path, though it's not the path I want. There are times where I wish I had tried my plan, but I think my life is better for not doing it. Somertime I'll even read that old book and I'll imagine Gatsby looking to me and saying,"You're doing good old sport. Keep it up."