Is anyone else haunted by the fig tree theory?
Have you ever heard of Sylvia Plath’s “Fig Tree” Theory? The one where she saw the fig tree as a representation of life and at the end of every branch was a different fig symbolizing a different life for oneself and how she couldn’t decide which fig to choose? I think about this theory at least once a week, if not more. I’d honestly say it is my Roman Empire (are we still saying this? Feel like I’m behind on the trend with this one, much like all of the others.) But I genuinely feel like it is. I feel like my mind has lived a thousand lives just based on all of the different career and life paths I’ve wanted to take throughout my life and yet I feel like I’ve physically lived none of them.
Growing up, every six months or so I’d change my mind on what I wanted to be when I grew up. Usually, it was based off of some movie I watched or some book I read and then I decided that night I wanted to change my whole life to set myself up to achieve that. I then proceeded to do nothing to get there. Between wanting to be an actress, a writer/blogger, athletic trainer/sports nutritionist, doctor, lawyer, own a boutique in a beach town, live in the mountains and spend all of my time hiking in the summer and snowboarding in the winter, move to the city and live a grand life going to fancy dinners and big events, and yes, every single one of these, and then some, have been things I’ve wanted to do with my life.
And now I’m 26, living in an apartment in a small town in what feels to me like the middle of nowhere, and I haven’t done any of these things. Maybe the blogger if you consider this to be that, but I’ve never made a cent off of one of these posts so I couldn’t say this is a successful blog, just a place I pop into every few months to give you an ins and outs list and write my feelings until I give up because I don’t know what to write about anymore or feel like I can’t keep up with the daily posting that I want it to be. So, I end up adding to my long list of figs. Another thing that I want to do with my life but can’t decide if that’s the path I want to take.
What if I choose the wrong one? Then 30 years from now when I’m sitting there with my husband and dog in whichever life we chose for ourselves, and I feel regret because I wish I had become that boutique owner in a beach town rather than whatever career I ended up going with. I could never feel regret for choosing the family I am building for myself, I love every moment with them, but my career? I fear that every single day. The fig tree theory haunts me to the deepest part of my soul. Even sitting here at my new job that I started last week; I’m already in the mindset of “Have I made the right choice? Am I already giving up on my goals of doing something bigger? Something greater than this?”
Maybe this loops into yesterday’s post of needing to go somewhere to find inspiration. Maybe I need to get out of this town again to find somewhere else I may find joy and feel like that’s where I belong. Maybe that would help me determine what I want to do. Or I can go back and watch any rom-com from the early 2000s and then it’ll respark my interest in becoming a journalist/blogger like Andie Anderson. Maybe one day this will pop off and I’ll be able to live my life off of a little Substack that I started while sitting at my job back in 2022. But until then, Sylvia Plath will continue to take up space in my brain rent free and I’ll keep looking at the figs deciding which one to pick.