I think Sylvia Plath & I are related.

But I'm not going to kill myself, no worries. (Maybe if I were born in 1932, it would be different, or if she had been born in 1976, it would have been better for her.) Somehow I've made it this far without really reading her writing, and what a jewel she was. In reading The Bell Jar, I found myself relating to a lot of her thoughts, and couldn't help but feel for her being born in a different era for women. I would love to read her later thoughts in life. It's too bad she didn't stay around to share with us.

Strangely, her life paralleled mine in a couple ways: her father dying at 8 (mine at 7), stating she never wanted to marry, then marrying a man in the same field who thought he was better, but then discovered that she was very talented and started womanizing on the side (oddly similar to my 5-6 year relationship with fellow optometrist Aaron).

A few things I liked from The Bell Jar:

"...I thought how strange it had never occurred to me before that I was only purely happy until I was nine years old."

"The trouble was, I hated the idea of serving men in any way. I wanted to dictate my own thrilling letters. Besides, those little shorthand symbols in the book my mother showed me seemed just as bad as let t equal time and let s equal the total distance."

"The one thing I was good at was winning scholarships and prizes, and that era was coming to an end."

"And I knew that in spite of all the roses and kisses and restaurant dinners a mans showered on a women before he married her, what he secretly wanted when the wedding service ended was for her to flatten out underneath his feet like Mrs. Willard's kitchen mat."

"He didn't answer but reached over and put his hand at the root of my hair and ran his fingers out slowly to the tip ends like a comb. A little electric shock flared through me and I sat quite still. Ever since I was small I loved feeling somebody comb my hair. It made me go all sleepy and peaceful."

"Buddy sat down beside me. He put his arm around my waist and brushed the ahri from my ear. I didn't move. Then I heard him whisper, "How would you like to be Mrs. Buddy Willard?"

I had an awful impulse to laugh."