The view from my soapbox is getting pretty good

I have decided that mentally I must be getting a LOT better, because I just finished watching Sylvia and frankly, she was pissing me off. Yes, I read The Bell Jar as a teenager. What complicated, emotional girl who was Editor-In-Chief of her high school newspaper doesn’t relate to that book…well to all of Sylvia Plath really…she and Anne Sexton. Tragic, gifted writers with romanticized mental illness are a big draw at that age.

But while watching the movie, I couldn’t help but be annoyed. That may have nothing to do with Sylvia and everything to do with Gwyneth, but I don’t think so. I kept wanting her to just shout from the rooftops or something. Tell someone you’re fucked up. Tell your husband to sod off. ASK FOR HELP. I know she tried, in her own way, but ultimately she took the coward’s way out. And that makes me mad.

She was brilliant and published and had done more than so many women at that time were told to think possible. She had CHILDREN and a life. OK, so she also had a philanderer for a husband, but that’s no reason to check out.

The damn, crying shame of it all really got to me. It’s not as if I didn’t know how the movie would end. But it just occurred to me while watching it, that she could have gotten better. She could have done so much more with her life. I’m not blaming her AT ALL (to paraphrase a line from Friends…hello kettle, this is Brooke, you’re black) and I know the hell she must have gone through.

I know the hell because I’ve been (am still at times?) there. And that’s probably why I’m all the more upset with the loss.

And not to harp on an already much-blogged about topic, but depression sucks major ass (as I’m sure Ms. Plath herself would have put it in one of her poems had she been around today…she may have even had a blog!). The amazing thing though, is that there IS a way out. And the old adage about suicide being a permanent solution to a temporary problem is unfortunately all too true.

You have to fight. Like hell. And you have to find WAYS to make it to the other side. It would sound so repetitious to say that one of mine is writing…I’ve already made that point previously. It’s also arrogant as hell for me to say so, because we’re talking about Sylvia Plath here, people. Um…I THINK she may have used writing as a form of therapy as well. I could only DREAM of emulating her success.

If I’m coming off as proselytizing, I apologize. Maybe I’ve “found religion” or something. Or maybe I’ve come to realize how amazing life, with all its flaws, is. Sylvia knew that too. She just lost her way.