“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more gifs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
My darling grandmother got married last week. At 83 years young, she entered her fourth marriage with her second David. After a beautiful ceremony in a room of only the people that really truly mattered, two people who were seemingly at the end of their romantic careers took convention and societal expectations, threw them out the window, and embarked on a new chapter of life together.
While I was flawlessly executing my maid of honor duty of holding her bouquet and standing by her side at the altar, it hit me- right place right time is the biggest load of picture perfect romcom propaganda to ever exist. “Too late” is just a lie we tell ourselves to get out of the sticky messiness that is fighting, persevering, and maintaining hope. For creatures that only get one, humans are really good at wasting their lives waiting and reminiscing.
And don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly guilty as well! I’ve spent far too many hours lying in bed, staring at my ceiling thinking of Sylvia Plath’s “Fig Tree”expert in “The Bell Jar,” and feeling crippling amounts of nostalgia for lives I never lived. What are my figs? Have I chosen the right ones? What else was out there? Which figs will I choose in the future? Which figs SHOULD I choose in the future? And just like that, I’ve missed the entire point of the poem in the first place- it was never about the figs, it was about just fucking picking one.
It’s a jagged pill for a chronic overthinker like myself to swallow, but it’s true. For every choice you make, there’s an infinite amount of others that could’ve taken its place. My manic daydreamer hyperactive imagination doesn’t help in limiting the expansive catalog of options either. But before I go down that terrifying rabbit hole, I digress.
The major motivation behind this piece was to have it be my public pledge to make more frequent attempts to get out of my head as well as more deliberate and meaningful decisions with an emphasis on making the most out of the life I was given (and also to brag about my super cool grandma). Especially while I am young, spry, and not yet overly jaded (though I swear I’ve noticed new wrinkles around my eyes this month), I vow to do the most I can with all that I have. After all, being the aquarius I am, my originality complex makes “boring” the scariest word in the dictionary to me- even scarier than squirrels (but that’s a story for another time).
Alas, before I ramble on too long, I will leave you with this thought: when in doubt, do as my grandmother has done, for I know no one more wise. She has lived many lives, loved many people, and eaten many figs in her lifetime, and has never faced complacency. From scientist to wife (many times over) and artist to educator, the list goes on, she has allowed herself gluttony in aspiration and accomplishment. So perhaps, next time you catch yourself waiting for something (or somebody), stop; it will all come when it comes, even if it’s not until you’re 83, so you may as well go out and live your life in the meantime. Or at least that’s what I’ll be doing.
Comments