To Be What's Missing

A letter from Zelda Fitzgerald to F. Scott Fitzgerald, March 1930

F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald were more than just the dazzling darlings of the Jazz Age. He was the celebrated author of The Great Gatsby, and she, a writer, dancer, and icon of the era in her own right. Together, they came to symbolise the glamour and excess of 1920s America but behind the sparkle was a marriage marked by creative ambition, instability, and deep emotional dependence.

In 1930, Zelda was in a Swiss clinic receiving treatment for what would later be diagnosed as schizophrenia, while Scott remained in Paris. From her isolation, she wrote him this letter - vivid, impassioned, and full of longing. Her words burst with imagery and emotional urgency, capturing the volatility of their love and the weight of absence.

Though their relationship was fractured by illness, infidelity, and personal struggles, this letter remains a powerful fragment of their story. One where devotion, madness, and romance blur together.

Dearest,

I love you anyway — even if there isn’t any me or any love or even any life — I love you.

I look down the tracks and see you coming — and out of every haze and mist your darling rumpled trousers are hurrying to me.

Without you, dearest, I couldn’t see or hear or feel or think — or live.

I love you so — and I’m never in all our lives going to let us be apart another night.

It’s like begging for mercy of a storm or killing beauty or growing old without you.

I want to supplant your misery. I want to be what’s missing.

Zelda