I never really read Sylvia Plath because even when I was one, I never wanted to look like one of those mopey depressed pseudo-intellectual teenage girls. But it seems like every time I come across a quote, it really rings true to my experience, and I probably should just break down and download a copy of The Bell Jar. Today's:
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 figs 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.
I'm a week into summer semester and awesome. Ahead on all my homework, despite the fact that some of it's already a little harder than I anticipated. Just got to keep on being awesome.
But there's the lingering terror that I'll grow bored or get distracted or some surprise major life change will strike and it'll all be for naught. Only time will tell if that terror will prove a savior, destroyer, or silly annoyance.
Anybody who reads this blog surely will notice that most of my life is planning for some future that doesn't actually materialize. I need to stop planning when plans always go awry, but without plans there isn't hope and life loses all savor.
Just keep on being awesome.
