if i did it, that’s not why i did it, but it’s related

today after therapy the last two lines surfaced in my mind entire and i haven’t read this book in like 20 years: 

“an hour later i lay in my hotel bed, listening to the rain. it didn’t even sound like rain, it sounded like a tap running. the ache in the middle of my left shin bone came to life, and i abandoned any hope of sleep before seven, when my radio-alarm clock would rouse me with its hearty renderings of sousa. 

every time it rained the old leg-break seemed to remember itself, and what it remembered was a dull hurt. 

then i thought, ‘buddy willard made me break that leg.’ 

then i thought, ‘no, i broke it myself. i broke it on purpose to pay myself back for being such a heel.’” 

—sylvia plath, the bell jar