Too Many Figs!

I was sitting at a work dinner last night, with my boss and our students, while they discussed the upcoming assignment. How harsh I would be when marking it. How nice I’ve been with deadlines.

I sat there and smiled, wishing I was somewhere else.

I talked about other people’s ways of evaluating work. I talked about my mentors, about how they do it in America, and how they do it in Europe. I talked about how I would do it differently if the institution allowed me it.

All while thinking about the other lives I wasn’t living at that exact table. One of the students had just come back from Turkey. I thought to myself, I’ve never been to Turkey. I want to visit Turkey. Maybe in a couple of weeks? Who would I take with me?

Until someone said my name and I remembered where I was.

And I realized; I spend an embarrassing amount of time worrying that I’m not living life to the fullest. That I’m missing something.

I catch myself daydreaming while doing something I love, distracted by the other life I could be living instead.

The version of myself who chose differently. Who committed harder, longer, earlier. The one who stayed. The one who left sooner. The one who didn’t hesitate.

I love too many things. That’s the problem. Or maybe it’s not a problem, but it’s definitely a complication.

People ask me simple questions and I immediately feel set up.

What’s your favorite book? Your favorite song? Your favorite film? Your favorite artist?

I never know how to answer. The question feels violent, unfair. Like asking a mother to choose her favorite child. Like forcing a ranking where love was never meant to be ranked.

I start running internal calculations. Favorite of all time or favorite right now?Favorite that changed my life or favorite that held me at the time? Favorite that feels like home or favorite that cracked something open and ruined me a little?

Sometimes I stall long enough that people fill the silence for me.

“Really? Nothing comes to mind?”

Of course things come to mind. Too many things come to mind. And choosing one feels like an act of betrayal. Like the others are watching me from the corner of the room, offended, wounded, quietly judging me.

I worry I’ll upset my other favorites if I choose one. As if books have feelings and films will hold it against me. As if songs will stop showing up for me later because I publicly favored a specific one.

So I laugh. I say it depends on my mood. Then I list five things, assign roles, get lost, and apologize mid-sentence. I say I’ll get back to you. I say I’m bad at favorites.

What I don’t say is that I take loving things very seriously. (I currently have three unfinished books open next to my bed. I will finish reading them all, but I will also give each one of them the attention that it needs, the care that it deserves.)

I love writing, but I also love film, and teaching, and starting projects, and finishing projects, and researching things just to know. I love people deeply and then panic about whether loving them deeply means I’m missing out on loving someone else differently. I love the idea of stability and the thrill of change in equal measure, (which feels rude, honestly. Pick a struggle.)

For years, I told myself this meant I had commitment issues.

With jobs. With hobbies. With relationships. With versions of myself.

It was an easy explanation. Slightly self-deprecating, slightly protective. Very on-brand for me. If I framed it as a flaw, I didn’t have to interrogate it too much. I just wasn’t built for sticking to things. End of story.

Then I remember Clementine, her face saying this line in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and it lodged itself somewhere uncomfortable:

“I’m always anxious thinking I’m not living my life to the fullest, taking advantage of every possibility, making sure I’m not wasting one second of the little time I have left.”

And I remember Sylvia Plath, how she also put it into words long before I ever could. She wrote about sitting in the crotch of a fig tree, starving, because each fig represented a different life she wanted. A poet. A professor. A wife. A traveler. Choosing one meant losing all the others. So she waited. And the figs rotted and then fell.

“…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.”

I’ve always understood that image deeply. Felt exposed by it, really. But here’s where I disagree. Sorry, Sylvia. (I think Sylvia Plath and I would’ve been great friends, Clementine too. and Kat Stratford.)

But I don’t think the figs have to rot.

I don’t think choosing means total erasure. I don’t believe the only options are starvation or surrender. You can call it delusion. Or ambition (Maybe?). Or just hope with better PR.

I want to believe I can collect them all. Maybe not at once. And not without dropping a few. But over time. With sticky hands and questionable organization. I want to believe some figs can be tasted later. That some lives can overlap.

The thought that choosing one thing automatically murders ten other possible lives terrifies me. That staying means stagnation. That leaving means regret. That loving one thing fully requires me to betray everything else that I love.

I want every door open, even while knowing that constantly revisiting the hallway could be its own kind of loss. I want depth and breadth and meaning and momentum all at once. I want to squeeze the marrow out of life without missing a single bone.

Sometimes I envy people who move through life with a clean, singular desire. Who want one career, one city, one person. Their wanting feels quieter. More contained. Less loud inside their own heads…

I don’t have a conclusion, dear readers. I never do. But that’s kind of the point.

I’m still anxious. Still loving too many things. Still afraid of wasting a life I’m actively living. But at least now I know it’s not a lack of commitment.

It’s an excess of longing. *insert sparkles here*

And maybe. Just maybe. Too many figs doesn’t have to mean none at all.

XOXO

FFB