Thursday, January 13, 2011

A passionate, fragmentary girl, maybe?

"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." 
— Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar)

Mehr: adjective, meaning blah, bleh, or ugh

I'm depressed/lonely today. I'm not quite sure why, because my days are constantly full with work and school, which implies interaction with people. I actually didn't want to leave work tonight and was dreading going home to an empty house.
I love living alone-- don't get me wrong. I can do whatever I want without worrying about other people. It's really nice to go about my life in its chaos and come back to the way I left it that morning.
But for some reason, today, I have some desperate need to be understood.
I want someone, anyone, to look at me and know what I'm thinking. No, I don't feel like explaining the essence of my thoughts-- just know, please.

"God, but life is loneliness, despite all the opiates, despite the shrill tinsel gaiety of "parties" with no purpose, despite the false grinning faces we all wear. And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter - they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long. Yes, there is joy, fulfillment and companionship - but the loneliness of the soul in its appalling self-consciousness is horrible and overpowering." 
— Sylvia Plath

Do you know what I'm saying?
Do you ever just stare at the wall and have so many thoughts swarming your head that you feel like crying because of how overwhelmed you feel? The strange fact is that I'm not actually overwhelmed. So far, work and school are under control.

"I didn’t want my picture taken because I was going to cry. I didn’t know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of my throat and I’d cry for a week. I could feel the tears brimming and sloshing in me like water in a glass that is unsteady and too full." 
— Sylvia Plath

So what is it?


"How we need another soul to cling to." 


I miss having people around me that just know. They don't have to physically speak-- simply sitting and knowing would be satisfactory. I suppose that's too much to ask of anyone, but it sure would be nice.

"I like people too much or not at all. I've got to go down deep, to fall into people, to really know them." 
— Sylvia Plath (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)

On that note, this is what I want:


Love that will not betray you, 
dismay or enslave you,
It will set you free
Be more like the man 
you were made to be.
There is a design,
An alignment to cry,
At my heart you see,
The beauty of love 
as it was made to be 
- Mumford & Sons, "Sigh No More"


"I am still so naïve; I know pretty much what I like and dislike; but please, don’t ask me who I am. A passionate, fragmentary girl, maybe?"
— Sylvia Plath



... That sounds about right.


"Here I am, a bundle of past recollections and future dreams, knotted up in a reasonably attractive bundle of flesh."
— Sylvia Plath




Cheers.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

It is hard to find someone who just knows our hearts. Someone we can be quiet with and yet say so much. It usually takes time to build that kind of relationship. Sometimes we get lucky and meet that person out of the blue.

I get my energy from people but sometimes when life is just a terch (yes I meant terch not touch), too busy I feel the need to get away. And yet away doesn't feel so good and alone feels even worse, but I just don't have the energy to be with people. It's a hard spot to be in.

Slyvia Plath has an interesting way with words but I find I can't read her too much or I start feeling blue. Nevertheless, her writings have a way of putting into words what I find difficult to say.

I hope your loneliness and fragmentariness pass quickly.