The Truth About Weeds

There are times when we fail to recognize what's right in front of us.



But for the record, I'm not going deep here. This is not in reference to children, marriage, a warm home (although sadly, I know that I've taken them all for granted plenty of times).



For now, I'm simply referring to the eyesore that is otherwise known as my yard. Every day for the last few weeks, I've walked past my neglected flowerbeds and refused to acknowledge the weeds. This is primarily because I'm too pre-occupied with hauling 65 pounds of offspring, complete with sippy-cups, stuffed animals and the occasional diaper bomb. But if I'm honest, another part of me didn't want to acknowledge it because I knew that would mean I'd eventually have to do something about it. And children are great excuses for staying too busy to do yardwork. Or clean. Or sometimes cook. Maybe get a shower. I digress...



Kinda like when the credit card bill comes and you tell yourself you're just gonna open it later, but in the meantime, you secretly hope your procrastination will give it ample time to vaporize into thin air. Or maybe, you'll discover upon opening it that someone like Oprah took it upon herself to pay off the balance.



So yeah. At first, I had hoped the weeds would just disappear on their own or that maybe the flowers would bloom around them and cover them up. But even I and my brown thumb know that wouldn't be the case. Everyone knows that if you want to see the pretty stuff, you gotta deal with the ugly stuff first.



So I donned my fashionable $1 gardening gloves (I heart Target Dollar Spot), rolled up my sleeves, and took advantage of the 80 degree weather. I tackled the first flowerbed on my hands and knees- pulling, digging, occasionally cursing under my breath and, about every three minutes, getting up to scamper after Milo or retrieve some piece of something he had put in his mouth. I had initially said I would only allocate about 30 minutes, but as the pile of weeds began to grow and I made my way to the next flowerbed, I became aware of the fact that I was actually enjoying it. Now, a gardener I am NOT. Most things I plant tend to die within hours of planting them. It's a gift. But apparently, I'm good at unplanting them. To my surprise, there was something cathartic about the sheer act of grabbing and yanking at the unsightly overgrowth. Some were unrelenting at first, forcing me to really dig my hands down deep into the earth in order to break them free. Those were actually my favorites. Each one felt like a tiny victory. The next time I looked at my watch, I was shocked to see it was lunchtime. My back ached, my thighs burned, and I was fairly certain my neighbors saw more of my backside than they probably cared to see, but it was all in the name of landscaping. At least our yard looked better. Not pristine. Probably more like, "hey, those people actually give a crap." (Baby steps, baby steps).



I tease my husband all the time about being crunchy, but I think this week has proved that maybe I'm more crunchy than I realize, too. Because instead of dreading the back patio (which will probably take me at least a solid week), I'm looking rather forward to it- to getting my hands dirty, feeling the sun radiate on my back, and listening to my children squeal as they play in the yard. I think, particularly after these last few weeks, it was a simple reminder to me that it's those things I avoid which often prove to be the most liberating. I always come away wondering why I resisted it so much to begin with.



{And okay, I know I said I was going to keep this on the surface, but the irony is just too much}



Sometimes things are stripped away from us and it's completely and utterly out of our control. Then there are the other times- those times when we're compelled to roll up our sleeves and strip it away ourselves. We know it's what we have to do. It's a matter of survival. Strip away the old, the ugly, the toxic- so that something beautiful can take it's place.



And for that reason alone, I fully intend to spend a lot more time on my patio this year than I have in years past. ;-)