*play me*

I’d love to write a book. I’d love to make a movie. I’d love to be a mother. I’d love to be a professor. There are so many things I’d love to do in this life, but not right now…

I’ve been thinking a lot about Sylvia Plath’s fig tree metaphor. I think in my early twenties I resonated so much with that feeling of being stumped, where to go, overwhelmed by the choices I could make or not. There’s so much truth to the worry that if you choose one dream, you’re killing the others. Or that you can’t choose more than one. The world wants to shove us in boxes, because isn’t it easier that way? Think about movies, isn’t it easier to talk about or find a movie you want to watch when you can classify it by genre. Our brains pretty instinctively categorize everything and everyone around us. I’m not sure if I know yet whether it’s innate or a symptom of socialization, maybe both, but either way it trickles down into our self perception. Which leads us to make certain decisions or follow distinct paths because it fits the box we or others have assigned us.

And it’s daunting to think we have to choose one path. If we must commit to something forever, how do we choose? It can be immobilizing looking at all the branches stretched out before you and not knowing which one to climb, very seven of cups energy if you’re into tarot.

Often times we stop here, or at least many young twenty somethings do. [I mean just think how many people must have fig tattoos] But what Sylvia is really getting at is that the stagnancy from indecisiveness is what kills dreams. Yes it’s scary to have to choose, but what’s scarier is when you ignore all the possibilities completely. Plath is also telling us we shouldn’t make important decisions on an empty stomach. When you aren’t eating, practicing, learning, or trying, all you can focus on is the hunger and panic. So why not just eat a fig, see how it tastes, reassess, and go from there. Because nothing is actually forever. Partners, jobs, friends, creative projects aren’t life sentences.

“I don’t know what I ate, but I felt immensely better after the first mouthful. It occurred to me that my vision of the fig-tree and all the fat figs that withered and fell to earth might well have arisen from the profound void of an empty stomach.”

The Bell Jar, Ch. 7, Sylvia Plath

That’s the real illusion, that every decision you make before 25 is every decision you’ll ever make. That every success has to happen now or it doesn’t count. I used to live with this feeling of impending doom, thinking that if I didn’t do it now, I’d never get the chance. And there should be a fire within us, pushing us towards more, pushing us towards transformation. But there’s a big difference between that and living out of fear. At some point we have to settle with the idea that we’ll try, but we might die tomorrow and if that means I didn’t get to live in Paris for a year, then that’s not what I was supposed to be up to. I’ve worked in schools, taught dance, was a real estate agent, opened an online boutique, etc. I’ve lived in Ohio, Arizona, Maryland, DC, and back and forth and back and forth. I’ve moved almost every single year since I was 18 years old. Getting a new driver’s license is like trying a new coffee shop. And as I inch closer to 30, I have know notions of slowing down. Most of my favorite creatives aren’t known for the work they did in their twenties: Toni Morrison didn’t publish The Bluest Eye till she was 39¹ and had a whole, full life with a family and taught as a professor at different universities leading up to that. Suzanne Collins wrote The Hunger Games at 45² and worked as a kids TV show writer prior.

Maybe it’s my age (28), maybe it’s my Saturn’s return, maybe it’s just the accumulation of every trauma, interrogation of self, and decisions to change that have led me here. But I feel settled. Right now I want to finish my bachelor’s before 30, run this blog, and enjoy the space I’m in. I have so many ideas for fiction and nonfiction books, other creative projects, and eventually building a family. But I’m not in a rush to do any of those things, because I know that everything I’m doing now will inform that later. And I’m at peace with the fact that one of the figs I haven’t picked yet, might be gone by the time I’m ready. But that just means it wasn’t meant for me.

There is no set timeline. There is no deadline. You don’t have to kill a dream to pursue another, just save it for later.

xoxo,

Ali Ann

Notes

1. Toni Morrison: The Life of a Literary Giant: https://thedig.howard.edu/all-stories/toni-morrison-life-literary-giant
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2. https://www.suzannecollinsbooks.com/bio.htm ↩︎