50 Years

Today is the fiftieth anniversary of Sylvia Plath's suicide.

I've been calling Sylvia my favorite writer for years now.  People who aren't English majors return the name with blank stares, and English majors look a little concerned, especially if I footnote it with "Viginia Woolf."

But I can't help it; I just love the crazy ladies.  There's something so completely honest and brave about their writing.  Their deeply introspective melacholy just rings so true.  Though fifty years seperate me and Sylvia, Sylvia and thousands of people like me, her words still have the power to pierce me through the heart, to tie up exactly how I feel, to put into words those misty foggy feelings that are so hard to capture.

I don't find it so alarming that I can relate to Sylvia.  I'm not clinically depressed, but I do have a tendency toward melancholy, and sometimes that makes me feel utterly alone.  Nobody cares enough to listen to my spiraling thoughts of sadness, and I don't really expect them to because such things are inherently illogical, so I just end up being lonely.  Somebody else can't really understand the throught process because it's not rooted in any of kind of transmutable logic. 

Though I understand that intellectually, I can't help but want to tell somebody about it.  But the words don't seem as important out of my mouth as they do in my head, and people don't care, so I just end up feeling worse after. 

I think a similar compulsion spurred Sylvia to write so much: a huge mass of journals, tons of poems, scraps of novels, and one beautiful gem of a complete novel.  There are all shades of the same kind of sad introspection, attempts to feel the emptiness.  A place to talk where nobody had to listen.

But we are listening to her now.  She's given me so much, including peace of mind.  It seems wrong that somebody who stuck her head in an oven can provide peace of mind, but she does.  There are Sylvia quotes written all over my life, both physically and mentally.  A little companionship, even with a dead author from fifty years ago, can go a long way.  I wouldn't be leading the life I lead if I didn't believe in the power of written word, and Sylvia personifies that power for me in a very real way.

I'm so glad I picked up The Bell Jar because it was on sale at Barnes and Noble however many years ago.  I hope one day I can write something, even if it's just a page, that echos with the transcendent, cerebral, relatable, and beautiful words Sylvia gave to us.