Long overdue revelations are the best kind
Or, the newsletter in which Maria over-quotes Sylvia Plath
Welcome to can’t relate, a newsletter from me, Maria Del Russo, that I write biweekly on Fridays. If you like what you’ve read, consider subscribing so you’ll be notified whenever I publish.
xxMDR
Hello! It’s been a while, I know. I don’t really have any reason. I just didn’t feel much like writing. You understand that, right?
One thing I didn’t expect when I started writing this newsletter is that it would become a kind of documentation of my life post-breakup. When it kicked off, I was unhappy in my relationship but stubbornly certain that it would continue chugging along. This was my person. I was 31 years old. I was supposed to be settled, right?
A few weeks ago, though, I started to feel a shift. Maybe it’s all the time I spent sitting on my couch, but I hit a wall. I realized that not only did I not want to be the person stage managing my relationships anymore, but I realized that I also wanted to actually start enjoying my life instead of treating it like a waiting room.
The issue is, I had no idea where to begin. I had believed the narrative I’d laid out for my life for so long: marriage, babies, kids. I’ve always known there were other ways to enjoy a life outside of the template that was set for so many of us. But I don’t think I actually believed it could be attractive to me. Does that make sense? “That type of life would work for someone else,” I’d say. “I’m meant to be a mom and find a husband and live the way everyone else in my family has lived.” Yes, other options exist. But not for me.
Lately, though, I’ve been thinking about the fig tree Sylvia Plath, writing as her main character Esther, describes in The Bell Jar:
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.
The quote, of course, continues on to be one of the great metaphors for indecision that has probably ever been written. (Yes, I stan Sylvia Plath, like every other feminist born after the second wave.) Esther imagines herself sitting at the base of the tree, starving to death because she can’t decide which fig (or life) to choose. But it’s the physical image of the fig tree that’s been stuck in my mind, not, surprisingly, the indecision.
For so long, I’ve seen my life as a pre-ordained, single-lane road for me to travel along. There would be twists and turns, of course, but for the most part, I’d be sitting on that road, hitting the “right” checkpoints along the way until I eventually drove off the cliff, Thelma and Louise-style
But now I’m finally understanding that that depressing metaphor isn’t actually the way I want to see my life. I’m thrilled by the fig tree. I feel grateful for the bounty of the fig tree. I don’t find myself starving at the trunk, panicked by indecision. I’m starting to be excited by the abundance that this tree is providing.
Because here is the thing that finally clicked into place in my brain, nearly 32 years into my life: No one decision is any worse or better than the others. I won’t be punished for bucking the traditional path or for choosing to follow it. A life filled with lovers with big names can be as fulfilling as one with a husband and a happy home and children. I can and will find happiness in the pockets of whichever life I choose.
How fucking beautiful is that?!
There’s another less-often-quoted line from The Bell Jar that also feels apt in this situation. It actually appears on the final page of the book, after (*spoiler alert for you handful of weirdos who haven’t read this book yet what are you doing go read it!!!!*) Esther has gone through her treatment and is leaving the hospital.
“My stocking seams were straight, my black shoes cracked, but polished, and my red wool suit flamboyant as my plans. Something old, something new…
“But I wasn’t getting married. There ought, I thought, to be a ritual for being born twice — patched, retreaded, and approved for the road…”
I’m still trying to figure out a ritual to mark this feeling of rebirth that I’m experiencing. But I feel steeled by it, ready to enter the next chapter of my life. I know there will be moments of fear and indecision, and I’ll definitely not believe everything I’ve written here every day of it. But getting here, to this revelation that seems so obvious to me now but I couldn’t access before, feels pretty huge.
This week’s trio
I spent six days falling in love with Berlin, Germany with my bestie Hannah B, and we ate, drank, and shopped like queens. In no particular order, my favorite spots to do all of the above: Katz Orange, Nola’s am Weinberg, Soba 32, Picknweight, Cafe Anna Blume, the flea market at Mauerpark, and Weinerei Forum, which Hannah and I went to three separate times during our visit. If you want more recs, you can check out my Instagram highlight.
ICYMI: I published a very important PSA about emoji misuse and Italian-American culture.
Apologies to my neighbors, but when things are going well in my life, which they are at the moment, I have a tendency to blast this disco playlist and dance around my apartment.
xxMDR