Many girls dreamed about the day they would get their first love letter, and I was no exception. We fantasized about the words they would rhyme our names with and the perfectly presented envelope the letter would arrive in. In reality, many of those letters ended up being a crunched up piece of loose leaf with “I like you. Do you like me? (Check yes or no)” scribbled on it. While these letters aren’t quite as eloquent as we had imagined, there is a man whose words melt my heart with every stroke of his pen: F. Scott Fitzgerald.
If you’ve ever been on the Quotes section of Pinterest, then you’ve probably seen one or two of his, like these.
“She was beautiful for the way she thought. She was beautiful for the sparkle in her eyes when she talked about something she loved. She was beautiful for her ability to to make other people smile, even if she was sad. No, she wasn’t beautiful for something as temporary as her looks. She was beautiful, deep down to her soul.”
“I fell in love with her courage, her sincerity and her flaming self-respect. And it’s these things I’d believe in, even if the whole world indulged in wild suspicions that she wasn’t all she should be.”
Oh my goodness.
Can you imagine someone writing this about you? Describing your beauty without describing your outward appearance?
It was these words of Fitzgerald’s that encouraged me to be the kind of woman that poets used to write about. Rather than conforming to the standards of today’s world, I’m choosing to be the kind of girl that Fitzgerald and all the other greats would find inspiration in. The girl that inspired them to be better and write these beautiful, beautiful words. The girl that laughed at the picture society wanted them to be and embraced who they truly were. I want to be the girl who dances in the rain and loves with her whole heart, even if I never get that love letter.
I guess I just want to be the kind of girl who understands that beauty is not something that can be seen just by looking at someone just as Fitzgerald knew.
Oh, F. Scott Fitzgerald, “I wish I’d done everything on Earth with you.”
