the fig tree
sometimes you're the toxic one
the shame of being seen consumes me.
people will naturally have a preconceived image of you. like how we put our crushes on a pedestal, only to get a reality check when they’re not who we imagined or fantasized them to be. limerence. we all have this desperate tendency to be liked. to live up to someone else’s expectations and standards. to not shatter the image they built of you to feel like you’re finally actually something… to someone.
we’re all very critical of ourselves at some point in our lives. i suggest staying emotionally unaware as you are right now might not be the worst idea since ignorance spares you the disappointment. i didn’t realize how pathetic that was until i looked in the mirror and placed myself on the pedestal of everything i wanted to become.
they say healing is linear.
it’s ongoing and occurs throughout the entirety of your lifetime. the concept seems foreboding to me, but it’s reassuring enough to remind myself that i don’t have a deadline of my own healing. but i find myself asking the same question over and over again, when does it ever get better?
healing is mostly a zigzag; i say it’s a zigzag and not a curve, is because it often gives a false sense of hope and suddenly, you’re straight down to rock bottom all over again. it requires an immense amount of patience. it's not always an easy process, but when i realized i had to give up certain expectations on myself, it has been bearable to live.
something in me wants more. i can’t rest.
self-concept plays a very important role. it was a concept i was not familiar with not too long ago. it’s the way you perceive yourself and your abilities. personally, having no somewhat, fixed concept of who i am is pretty frustrating. especially when i’m still figuring out the difference between a credit card and debit card at the ripe age of 18.
i am well-obsessed with improvement. sometimes, i want to rot in bed, but oftentimes i really want to get better for myself. i fixate on individuality and ridiculous labels made by people chronically online. i define myself with these labels to supposedly have a clear sense of who i am. but i realized, i no longer want to be defined shallowly.
in a society where people had lost their sense of identity, clinging on to a bunch of two-to-three-four-letter words and phrases, i refuse to be labeled and limited to a word or idea that has been inherently thrown around and lost its absolute meaning.
i want to live a life where i am better and where i am continuously getting better. i want to be the one who knows exactly what i talk about. i want to go out and enjoy my life at all times with no hesitation. but where exactly do i draw the line?
there’s a psychological explanation behind being overly-ambitious when people have done you wrong. once you start feeling good about yourself, you couldn’t really care less of what’s happened in the past anymore. but my improvement often comes from a place of comparison. until i dig deep enough to face the roots of my issues shamelessly, it’ll always creep up in the back of my mind and the cycle continues.
truth be told, trying to get better only makes me feel way worse sometimes. much to my disappointment, that is where i am in right now.
“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
the hundreds of potential versions of myself scattered across the possible timelines and opportunities i refused would probably look at the current me and sigh.
disappointing myself is easy. it’s a full-time job. contrary to what i’ve said in the beginning, my own thoughts about myself matter to me most. more often than not, it’s a little more ambitious and unrealistic compared to what other’s perception of me is.
there is more i want to become, but as the novelist once remarked:
“…i can never be all the people i want and live all the lives i want. i can never train myself in all the skills i want. and why do i want? i want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life. and i am horribly limited.”
i have yearned and recited that in my mind a million times, but guess what… i am on the verge of redefining that prose and start taking pleasure in my own progress.
it takes a lot of courage to pick the right fig. but i am too passionate. i am too eager of getting back my spark. i came to mind that i am indeed limited, but i will not starve myself to death in the crotch of the fig tree, because i can be whoever i want to be.
love,
estefany