Regaining Lost Ground

The past few weeks have been an out-of-garden gardening experience. I'm going to take the garden metaphor and beat the crap out of it as I examine my state of mind over these weeks.

The fruits and vegetables are overproducing, almost to the point of being obscene. Because I've been gone, on the road for several weeks, much of what has been produced has not been harvested and instead has fallen to the ground to rot. This is where I am. Rotting in the ground. The inverse of that concept is the idea of providing fertile soil for future planting, but I haven't gotten to that point yet; all I can see is the rotted fruit.

I've been trying to run from my ex-husband, trying to not feel how bad this all felt when it went down. When it hit the fan, BOOM, someone new filled the vacuum and fed my enormous ego. He was like a hit of crack (although if I'm going to stick to this garden metaphor I better lay off the crack). It was just overwhelming and it kept everything else at bay, created new stuff that became way too much to handle. It was like that damn watermelon plant on steroids or something. That plant actually scares me a little. I think it grows several feet each day, almost while I'm looking at it. My ex was like a strangling vine, choking me and cutting me off from life; the new guy was my Miracle Gro (god this metaphor is making me sick to my stomach) making me obscenely productive, or even just obscene, but in a scary, Franken-fruit kind of way that violates the natural order of things.

After wandering around, traveling with my kids and spending time with ex-one and now-ex-two (husband and boyfriend respectively) over the last few weeks, I am glad to come home to my nest. I'm just exhausted. Somehow I need to find the energy to get out there and weed, to clear out some of the mess, to cut back some of the overgrowth even though it does make the garden look kind of cool. If I don't cut back, the plants won't produce as much. I hate cutting back because it makes me feel sad to cut down parts of a plant that worked hard to grow. How sentimental is that? But I know it's for the plant's own good to be cut back, no matter how painful, so that the fruit can be that much more sweet.

Ahem!

So, to complete my ridiculous metaphor, I am cutting myself back, cutting off the roots and vines and raggy, stringy stems that keep me tied to a past that I don't even want anymore. Of course I will find love again and of course the next time it will be with someone who appreciates me and cares about me. In the meantime, I have to stand alone and be who I am. Produce myself, for myself and by myself. Protect my kids. And just be.