All The Figs

“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

I’ve never empathised more with a piece of literature than I do with this. I’ve lived my life, thus far, as though it were an extended adolescence. The most commitment I’ve made to anything would have been that time I wore the same pair of undies three days in a row because I was too lazy to do laundry.

Recently I have been feeling the cold and clammy hands of father time clasped firmly around my jugular, slowly applying pressure. I am starting to feel a pull towards something more stable, more meaningful from my life and endeavours before the figs all dry up.  I’m ready to start eating the figs.

This will be my occasional ramblings and musings coupled with useless information and my standard inane drivel whilst I attempt to gorge myself on figs.