Reliving The Past

   

    In Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, a major theme is Gatsby’s inability to let go of the past. After being separated from Daisy for five years due to his war duties, Gatsby returns to the same city in an attempt to win her back. He believes that by earning loads of money, he can win her back, but the reality is that he can’t relive the past.

    The moment I read that part of chapter 7, I thought of myself. Since the start of quarantine in March of 2020 till the start of in person school in September of 2021, I have had countless moments where I have felt like going back the past. When the pandemic initially started, everyone was overjoyed. A long weekend? A week of no school? Hooray! However, once we learned that quarantine would extend until the end of summer, mixed feelings arose. I was startled at the magnitude of change I would be experiencing, but more importantly excited for what my future was going to look like. Turns out, my excitement was well-reasoned, as I truly thrived in the April/May months. I established a routine schedule of finishing my assignments early, so that I had loads of time to sleep, exercise, relax, and do anything I pleased. Who wouldn’t like that? 

    As the situation worsened and quarantine continued to extend into summer, however, more people began to despise the situation. I, on the other hand, never thought bad about quarantine until the start of online school. The idea of logging on to zoom and listening to teachers talk for 90 minutes each was very unappealing and it was, in fact, quite draining. It was at this moment when I first experienced this sense of longing, a bittersweet nostalgia of the past. I yearned for the times when I could sleep late and create my own schedule and I was desperate to somehow shift time and space to go back to that era. This feeling only heightened as the year went by, but I managed to make it through by attempting to recreate what I longed for. My actions and thoughts embodied Gatsby’s statement as he extinguishes the idea of not reliving the past: “Can't repeat the past? Why, of course you can!” (85). I still had a plethora of time to create a schedule full of fun, proactive activities and was, in a way, able to recreate a sense of the early quarantine days. 

    However, with the start of in person schooling, this schedule was utterly destroyed. Many people, myself included, complained about virtual schooling and wanted to return to in person school. Though when I returned, I craved again for schooling at home. Even now as I write this, I desire to go back to the quarantine months. Although there were other issues, my mental health and overall happiness were at much greater levels than what they are at now. But unfortunately, as stated by Nick himself, “You can’t repeat the past” (85).