“So much working,
reading, thinking, living to do. A lifetime is not long enough. Nor youth to
old age long enough. Immortality and permanence be damned.” –Sylvia Plath
Today marks fifty-one years since Sylvia Plath died. In
commemoration, I thought it best to use a quote by her today. She is definitely
one of my writing idols. Of Virginia Woolf, Plath says, “I feel my life linked
to her”. In the same way, I feel linked to Plath. Her unabridged journals
(where these two quotes are from) are one of the deepest reads in the mind of a
young woman, particularly a woman artist.
This “so much working, reading, thinking, living to do” is a
common tension. I feel it nearly everyday, especially since being at a real,
full-time job. There’s just not enough time to read everything that I want to
or have all of those discussions or paint or sketch or hike or whatever. A
lifetime really isn’t enough.
I’ve lately taken to believing in seasons. I am praying that
it is a truth and that I could bring that tense personality within me to chill
out while I focus on one season at a time. For example, I want to be a potter;
I also want to be a poet and a painter and someday a wife and mother. But right
now, I am a Consultant, a dog-owner, and a musician, while trying to write here
and there. How does this factor in? I want to create; I want to soak in all
that there is in terms of literature and art, but there just isn’t enough time.
So that’s it—I am these things right now, but God-willing in
the future I will be the others on my list, accomplish those things. I think a
part of me has accepted defeat in that I will never read every book on my list
or my shelves.
I think acceptance is the most difficult emotion to feel,
and I think that was one of Sylvia Plath’s (and my) greatest struggles. How do
we accept that things won’t be the way we want them to? How do we accept love
from others? How do we accept the changes and curves that come along the path?
Word Count: 378
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