I said "the weight of memories". How can you remember everything that happened in your life if it is endless?
That really depends purely on how you assume human memory to work. Is there some kind of "storage limit"? Who knows? Empirically speaking people certainly appear perfectly capable of retaining about a century's worth without problems (barring outright degenerative diseases or injuries), it's just that the gradual cellular decay of aging sooner or later starts eating at that too.
But someone whose biology remains perpetually vigorous? Who can tell, not like we have case studies to draw on. An sich there doesn't seem to be any particular reason to favour or dispute any specific assumption a fiction author may want to make about the matter.
And in the same fashion that you become numb to the loss of people, because they are just passing in a flash, you become numb to life itself, because at some point, you'd become bored. If you're eternal, there's no point to anything.
I suspect you're selling the robustness of human psychology very short here. Do remember that the overwhelming majority of human beings who have ever lived led, frankly, dreadfully monotonous and repetitive existences generally revolving around the agrarian cycle and their particular little field; they seem to have managed well enough though festivities and holidays have been universally highly appreciated to liven things up a bit.
Likewise you've had mystics effectively abandoning society for a life of solitary contemplation in the howling wilderness, barely above the subsistence limit. Just for one example the first human inhabitants of the Faroes and Iceland seem to have been Irish monks seeking to commune with God in isolation.
Eventually, having a really long life would be interesting if you can explore the universe and find new things? Alien sex may be a thing, who knows.
Sheer curiosity about what the future brings ought to be a pretty safe bet for an immortal's reason to keep going. Maggie's fairly well off in that regard as the story is set in a period that might be unironically described as interesting times - the world had already undergone momentous changes in only about two-three generations, more of the same was right around the corner and the heady days of the Space Age were just dawning...
The fact that she's now bedding with someone "independently wealthy" also means she is for a change free of the drudge of earning a daily wage and has unusually open opportunities to see where the world is going.
last edited at May 4, 2018 10:48AM