Hello 2024
Beware: Sylvia Plath fig tree metaphor incoming
Hey everyone,
I’m back. Back in Madrid, back teaching, back writing. I am also back to being happy, back to being my own best friend, and back to feeling like myself.
At the end of my 22nd year, I imagined that I was already 23. I no longer identified with my 22-year-old self. She was the version of me who went to Kenyon College, who stressed about writing essays, and spent her summer nannying. I forgot about her long before I lost her. I moved to Madrid, and suddenly, I was the teacher, not the student. Because of that, I couldn’t be 22-year-old me anymore. I had to be 23. I imagined that turning 23 would make everything feel right. I would be older, happier, more settled. Of course, that did not happen. Because that never happens. On your birthday, when someone asks if you feel any different, you always say, “Not really,” because, in the end, a birthday is just another day.
I knew all of this, and I still imagined 23 as something better, greater, bigger, older. And when none of these wishes came true, I projected them onto the new year. In 2024, I would be put together. I would feel established in Madrid and in this newfound adulthood. I would be secure in this life where I am no longer a student because I’m tired of that, right? I’m tired of reading and writing and turning things in. I love being an adult an ocean away from my family and a flight away from anyone who knew me when I was little (or at least littler than I am now).
2023 became 2024, and I very quickly realized that I had no idea what I was talking about. I spent my first night back in Madrid crying over this hole I had felt deepening in my chest since the beginning of my 23rd year. Mistakenly, I had attributed this hole to my lack of romantic commitment. If had a boyfriend to return to, I would be so happy right now, and I would not be crying on my first night back in Madrid because I would be cuddling him, etc. While I do find my feminism slipping and myself wondering that if I did have a boyfriend, I would spend less time worrying about the societal pressure of finding said boyfriend and therefore, spend less time worrying, thus freeing myself to invest in the things that bring me joy, I know that this is incorrect. I have to invest in the things that bring me joy first, and then, the universe shall reward me with a boyfriend. Or at least I hope. It’s the whole romance only finds you when you’re not looking bullshit.
The truth is I cried when I returned to Madrid because while I do cherish my life here, some very important things are missing. Namely, my family, Lake Michigan, and the Midwestern United States at large. (Lack of a boyfriend not included in this list.) These are the things pressing against the edges of and widening the hole in my chest. And when the clock struck midnight on January 1st, 2024 a couple of dreams began to patch that hole…
I will spend the beginning of this year writing, creating a portfolio that I feel proud enough of to submit to grad schools, to MFA programs in the Midwest, so I can go home to the place I love to do the thing I love, so I can write. I’ll keep teaching. Here in Spain right now, and here in Spain for one more year, and then, in grad school, and then, as a professor. I’ll write a book, and it will become a movie or a TV show. And maybe someday, I’ll be able to develop content for PBS or Sesame Street, and they’ll interview me on the Today Show (because through the lens of my younger self watching my mom watch the Today Show every morning, you’ve only really made it if you get asked to be interviewed for a 6-minute segment on there). And if Spain for one more year doesn’t work out, then I’ll move home and work in a bookstore again because one of the best things on earth is recommending a book to someone that you know will change their life.
The truth is I cried because I want all of these things to happen so badly. I can see my life spiraling out from me like Sylvia Plath’s fig tree.1 I can see the branches I want to climb and the figs I want to eat. They will fill the hole. But I can’t reach them. Not yet. Honestly, maybe it would’ve been simpler if I truly was crying over a boy because then I could get on Bumble, choose someone who I could imagine was both hotter in person and normal, enjoyed reading books, and wouldn’t murder me. Maybe we could have a couple of musical interests in common as a bonus. Then, I could meet them, decide they’ll do, and be happy. But it’s not that simple, is it?
Besides, the true cure to the whole lack of a boyfriend, my-inner-anxiety-monologue-does-not-pass-the-Bechdel-test thing is to concentrate on finding things to fill the hole in the meantime. Like my friends for example. Two major finding the pony moments of December were visiting my friend Olivia (from Bath) in Italy and my friend Celeste (from Kenyon) visiting me in Madrid. Relatively in my life, they are new friends, but they are friends who knew me as a student before I was a teacher living in Madrid, and I didn’t realize how comforting that bond would be until I met them here in this new life. After seeing them, I felt like I was returning to myself. They reminded me of my old dreams, my old loves. They reminded me that it’s okay to find those things again now. I realized that perhaps I was attempting to reach for the next fig too quickly, and it was okay to linger in the lower branches, to hold onto an old fruit and savor it for a while. Going home for the holidays made me feel the same way. I left Michigan with the realization that if I had to go home and live there for a little while before I figured out what was next, that would be okay. It would be okay to linger.
Life is funny because when I was a kid, the hole in my chest was a need to leave, to grow up and get away. I filled it by going to summer camp, to college, to England, to Spain. Now, the hole is a need to return. Time travel would be the easiest solution, but the easy choice is never the most fulfilling. Someone told me (I think it was Shea) that she sees her early 20s as returning to everything she loved as a child. However, returning to being that child would ruin the magic of choosing to return to her now. It’s harder to choose to return with our adult bodies and our adult worries, but it means more. Accepting that filling the hole in my chest means going back to the Midwest means I must forgive my teenage angst and embrace the little girl who loved spending her summers there. It means that for my miserable 16-year-old self, it did get better. It also means that I have to live in this moment and do my best to forget about the hole, to fill it with what I can here, right here, right now because one day, maybe I will wish to return to the girl who spent her early 20s living in Madrid.
At the very least, these days are important because they make up the experiences that will help me return. I can feel the personal statement forming as the application begins to write itself… I went to Spain to learn I love teaching, to learn I need more time for writing, and to learn that Europe is great but at the end of the day, my silly little soul longs for the Midwest, and that is why I need to attend your graduate school.
I forgot how dark it gets in Michigan after the sun sets. I forgot how gray the sky is. The color of the dead grass. The winter landscape is a pallet of dull golden browns, bluish grays, and maroon. Most people resent it. Find it ugly or depressing. Going home for the holidays reminded me of how much I love it.
It’s been a wild and emotional beginning to 2024. I’ve had a lot of realizations, and January isn’t even over yet. But don’t worry about me. I’ve stopped crying and yearning for the most part. I’m passing the Bechdel test. I’m climbing the fig tree. I’m okay with lingering.
This week’s soundtrack:
“The Obvious Child” by Paul Simon. When Celeste visited, she sat on my bed and made me a list of movies to watch. Obvious Child starring Jenny Slate was the first movie I chose to watch off that list. What a wonderful recommendation. I felt like the universe was waiting for me to watch that movie. It featured Paul Simon’s song, so it’s only fitting to include it in this week’s playlist, especially since Paul has written the soundtrack for The Only Living Girl in Madrid. ;)
“Nothing to Declare” by MGMT. New drop from your favorite mid-2000s band. “Nothing to Declare” is far from “Time to Pretend” (MGMT’s famously hype song) but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. This song feels like a song I would have loved listening to at Interlochen Arts Camp in 2015, but it’s cool that I get to listen to it for the first time now. I also think it shows that MGMT has done a great job of aging and growing their sound. Everyone likes softer indie music right now (see bands like The National collaborating with the likes of Taylor Swift), and soft indie music they produced. Besides, “Time to Pretend” is still so good and so popular they were smart not to attempt to replicate it.
“Martha My Dear” by The Beatles. When I heard this song last week, I felt like The Beatles were speaking to me every time they said “silly girl.” And they’re right. I better take a good look around me, stop being silly, and enjoy.
“Crop Circles” by Odie Leigh. This song has definitely been on my playlist before if not twice, but it’s the perfect song for being okay with lingering. I would linger and listen to this song forever. If you listen to it this time, listen to the lyrics for me because they’re so good. I love you Odie Leigh.
“Back In My Body” by Maggie Rogers. Last week was the fifth anniversary of Maggie’s first full-length album Heard It In A Past Life. It was cool to see her reflect on that era of her life in her social media posts. She said that it was full of high highs and low lows. Her whole life had changed after the video of Pharrell listening to her song in an NYU class went viral (if you haven’t seen the video please watch it). This album was proof that her dream had come true. In a weird way, it was nice to see that while her dream came true, she was freaking out. She said she wrote the first verse of this song after a particularly bad breakdown. It was also nice to see that she is doing so much better now. I realized that she was probably about my age when Heard It In A Past Life came out, and it’s nice to know that she felt crazy then, but she’s doing so much better now. (She just went to New Orleans with Jane Fonda, like invite me next time guys!) It gives a crazy-feeling-23-year-old something to look forward to. She also went to grad school lol. Maybe grad school is the cure for feeling crazy. That and your frontal lobe finally developing.
xoxo,
Maddie
(I’ve still given up on trying to make the Apple Music version work. Apologies to my Apple Music users.)
Note: Views are my own and do not reflect those of The Fulbright Program or La Comisión Fulbright de España.
“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 (Fun fact: Sylvia Plath also won a Fulbright.)
if only Sylvia Plath knew what she was going to do for the girlies with that fig tree metaphor...
This is BEAUTIFUL
this is incredible, maddie, and i, too, am going to try get better at lingering