Regine
Kierkegaard says, "By my own strength I cannot get the least little thing that belongs to finitude, for I continually use my strength to resign everything. By my own strength I can give up the princess, and I will not sulk about it but find joy and peace and rest in my pain, but by my own strength I cannot get her back again, for I use all my strength in resigning. On the other hand, by faith, says that marvelous knight, by faith you will get her by virtue of the absurd. But this movement I cannot make. As soon as I want to begin, everything reverses itself, and I take refuge in the pain of resignation. I am able to swim in life, but I am too heavy for this mystical hovering."
The story of the princess and of Agnes and the merman can be interpreted autobiograpically. Here Kierkegaard is using the story of Abraham to help himself understand his relationship with Regine Olsen. She was his only love as far as "finitude" is concerned and he gave her up. Kierkegaard says the young man who was in love with the princess learned 'the deep secret that even in loving another person one ought to be sufficient to oneself. He is no longer finitely concerned about what the princess does, and precisely this proves that he has made the movement infinitely."
Kierkegaard tasted his first love in Regine and he said it was "beautiful and healthy, but not perfect." Regine, his first love was his second love; it was an infinite love. But he resigned it in order to serve God.
We frequently see men who fear that when they fall in love someday they will not find a girl who is precisely the ideal, who is just right for them. Who will deny the joy in finding a girl like that, but on the other hand it is indeed a superstition to think that something that lies outside a person is what can make them happy. The person who lives ethically also wishes to be happy in his choice, but if the choice proves to be not entirely according to his wish, he does not lose heart; he immediately sees his task and that the art is not the wish but to will. Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or Part 2 p. 252
Read more about this topic: Fear And Trembling