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
I want this, but I’m too scared. My mother married a stranger. Look where that got her. I should tell you, my dear. I might not get married at all. I’m too scared. Right now I’m sitting on my bed listening to you snore. Like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Like I could do nothing lying here with my laptop in bed with you while you sleep in another city, thousands of miles away, snoring in your own bed. And I am so scared. I am scared of your anger. I am scared of your addiction. I’m scared I’m not enough. I’m scared and my first impulse, when I’m scared, is to run. And I can’t promise you I won’t. Remember when you told me about the concept of “one day at a time”? That is what I need. I didn’t run away yesterday.
Not today. Can’t promise about tomorrow. But every day that I stay will be of my own free will. So when I say I love you, I mean it. When I stop meaning it, I’ll run. I’m scared as all hell of being with someone in the long run because there’s a certain decisiveness attached to it that I don’t think I possess. Because choosing one path would mean forgoing so many others that I could potentially follow. So forgive me. Forgive me for not being so strong-headed about relationships. I promise you my love and I will always care for you in some way. But I can’t promise you a future. Because some days I want to have children with you. Some days I think about coming home to you and cuddling with you and watching a movie. But there are times when I think of all the other things I want. Freedom. To not be attached to someone. And not because of the sex. Sex isn’t that important. And there are days when I feel so lonely despite the fact that you’re a phone call away. I know you can’t take my loneliness away. I know I’m confused, and it’s not right to keep you hanging. I know you want commitment. But I can only promise you love.
This isn’t a plea for you to stay. Because I know you’ll stay even if I tell you all of this, hoping that I, too, will decide to stay if you love me enough. You’ll try to fix me and hope that if you love me enough, I’ll eventually stop being scared. You and I, we’re like peas in a pod. But that is not how it works Meri Jaan (my love). This is a plea not to invest yourself so much into me that there’s no going back. I won’t bear to have to hurt you. I would blame myself. I would want to die more than I already do. Please understand, I’m in love with you, and every fibre of my being is urging me to run away as far as I possibly can and at the same time to hold you closer and never let you go. I wish this agony would end. I wish I could decide. I wish I knew what I wanted. I wish this internal struggle weren’t causing me so much pain every single day. I wish I was simpler. I wish I didn’t think so much and let social conventions drive me. Because I’m letting social conventions make me feel bad, but I’m too smart to let them drive my life. So stupid, right? There are two sides of the coin. One side tells you that you should be a particular kind of person; settle down at an early age, have babies, have a fulfilling career, the usual. The other side tells you to do whatever the fuck you want to do and don’t feel like shit because the other side tells you it’s not what you’re supposed to do. I’m on neither side; I’m around the edges. I don’t know what I want. And every single day this hair-splitting decision with all of its agony kills me slowly.
