Sometimes life just doesn't go right.
I started exercising nine years ago. I walked for an hour or two every morning with a friend, pushing our babies up and down hills. After she moved, a couple years later, I decided to step it up a notch and started running. I was up while it was still dark and before long could run from my house, round the temple and back. For someone who always considered themselves NOT a distance runner, this was huge. And when I wasn't running, I made sure to walk/hike daily. My daily walks was a contributing factor to getting a dog after we bought the house. Having Trigger brought a level of safety and gave me added incentive to go EVERY day (nothing like a crazy, hyper dog for helping keep you motivated). Mostly we walked/hiked until I added "races" a couple years ago. They were just 5Ks, but they made me run instead of walk in the mornings. The Disney 5K in January was my real "challenge". I was running with family and I didn't want to be embarrassingly slow. So I ran. Every day. Treadmill during the coldest of the winter. Plus I was doing yoga. At least 20 minutes. Every day. I wasn't really fast, but I felt good. More healthy than I had felt in years. I could run for three miles and not be dead tired and sore afterwards (after my first 5K I could barely walk for days afterwards). I planned to keep it up all this year. Run a bunch of 5Ks (instead of just one) and start extending my distances.... so I could run the Freedom 10K in July and try for a Half next year (I really would like to run a Half, just once, so I can say I did it and can feel ready to join a Ragnar team). It totally seemed a reasonable goal. Hard. A stretch. But still within reach.
Then I totaled the car.
On top of everything it taught me about vulnerability and imperfection, it also left me physically weak. I was dealing with a mild concussion (and very worried, given my brother's and my mother's long-term problems after car accidents). I took it "easy" for weeks and weeks, to let my brain rest and heal. The concussion pain let me know when I'd overdone it. And slowly, the pains got fewer and farther between, until they seemed gone. Then some family drama (read misunderstanding) really hit me hard. I didn't realize how hard until the concussion pain started back up that day. It's almost gone (again). And that is good. But it means that since February, the needs of my brain have OFTEN kept me from running. I didn't run at all for months after the accident. And then just as I was getting back into the swing of things.... BOOM. Sprained ankle. No more running for a few weeks. But I started it back up. I wasn't giving up. Well, at least not entirely. I gave up the idea of a 10K this year, but I went ahead and spent the $$ to do a "fun run" and a couple 5Ks. I could do that much at least. Right? And then, just as I'm thinking "I've got this" (or at least "I will have this by then") enter severe nose bleeds. Like the 2 1/2 hours to get them to stop, hemorrhaging (the ENT's word, not mine) type nose bleeds. Four like that, in six days (plus two "minor" 20 minute type ones). I knew sort of what to do, as my sister has been lucky enough to deal with such things her whole life, and thanks to saline spray and coconut oil in the nose, I was able to avoid (knock on wood) a nose cauterization. But it did make it hard to run last week. Hard to really exert yourself when you're afraid you'll end up gushing blood for a couple hours. And so, here I am two days from my first 5K....
and so not ready.
Then there's my yard. Anyone who reads my blog (thank you to the two of you who do) and/or who know me well, know I love to garden. I love to make things grow. I love to make things beautiful. And I've gotten pretty good at it. My yard grows well and gets complements regularly. People drive or walk by "just to see how it's changed" as the seasons progress. My garden produces well. I start my own plants from seed. I sell/give away the surplus starter plants. I have greens early in the season and peppers/tomatoes late into the year thanks to my greenhouse. I'm kind of an "expert" at hobby gardening and landscaping.
Except for this year.
This year, I'm kind of a failure.
Oh, people still comment and compliment. People still ask for advice. I'm sure they see the gaps and voids as something I surely planned. But they're not.
February, when I should have been cleaning, organizing and planting my greenhouse... I was dealing with shame, a concussion and trying to buy a car. Before I knew it, it was the end of April.
I tried to start just a few seeds.
It didn't go well.
My greenhouse lost a couple panels to winter winds. Not uncommon... but this year, the neighbors' dog chewed them up (like ATE them) as soon as they hit their yard. I haven't had the time or $$ to do anything to fix it, so my greenhouse looks like a vacant, run down house.
Most of the seedlings died, due to my lack of care. I was struggling to handle... well, anything... so watering my plant babies, just didn't get done.
Of the few that survived my "starting" them... most died in the ground. Something ate ALL my marigolds and ALL my basil.
See? No marigolds. I planted seed. It came up.... and disappeared.
So I planted the seedlings I had started.... and they're completely gone from the west side and only a couple remain on the east side.
They've been chewed so hard, they look like tiny cactus. They can't survive for much longer, I'm sure.
Where last year I had flowers and tons of basil...
a void,
with only one lonely, tiny little basil start trying it's best not to die like all the rest.
It may have been pill bugs, like last year. But unlike last year I did not have the time, energy or will to dig lion traps and wipe them out, all of them. Of course, it may have been the grasshoppers. They've definitely been eating their way through lots of other things. Like my huge tall iris in the front.
I came out a few nights ago to find a grasshopper on EACH leaf and realized they had eaten them down about 12 inches! That was the night we broke out the pesticide. (I haven't sprayed for bugs hardly ever.)
The only other remaining seedlings are in the back...a tomato and a couple peppers that have managed to hold on (see all those gaps and empty cages??). But where I should have plants over a foot tall, I have tiny babies. They were started late and just aren't getting cared for. Doubt I'll get much produce.
The whole garden is kind of a waste... in addition to my pathetic tomato and pepper plants, I have carrots in bloom (from ones I missed when I pulled them up last fall), onions and garlic I planted last fall, a couple squash plants, my struggling asparagus... and of course the dead (should have been pulled out weeks ago and planted with something else) peas you can't see, since I'm standing between them.
The four plants I broke down and bought are doing ok. A tomato, a pepper and two artichokes. They're my proof that I haven't completely lost the touch (a sort of serious worry after a concussion and dealing with fuzzy brain and the frequent I can't think of the word I want and the dramatic increase in type-o's, all proof of brain dysfunction... do I still like to garden??? have I broken that part of me???).
But the strawberry transplants... not doing well.
The daylillies are also feeling the neglect. It's been so hot that they've all scorched terribly. They've had enough water to stay alive and bloom... but not enough to keep from burning in the heat of the day.
What's a little scorching?? you ask. Why stress? If it were just that I wouldn't. But it's the greenhouse in pieces and a mess, the seedlings getting started two months late and dying from my lack of care. It's the plants dying on me left and right. It's definitely an OFF year. I'm pretty much failing here.
To try and put a more positive spin on it, I've tried calling it a Fallow Year.
During the middle ages farmers discovered that the Roman system of letting fields rest, without being planted, renewed fertility and increased productivity. (We could get lost in the fact that crop rotation is far more efficient than the fallowing system... but I would lose my great analogy, so let's leave that out of it for now.) It helps to tell myself I'm (sort of) letting my yard rest and renew itself, rather than seeing just failure.
And it isn't just my yard that is taking a rest. My exercise goals. My home improvement projects. My art. My getting up early. My doing yoga. Pretty much everything is getting dropped or only getting dealt with in spurts. Except for one thing. Every day I get up, go into the living room and spend time nourishing my spirit. I read from the scriptures for a while and then read a Conference talk or Ensign article. The rest of my life might not be "right", but I'm making sure the most important things are happening, so that when the fallow season ends, my soil is nourished and ready to produce all the good works I hope to have happen in my life.
I'm not exactly sure when the fallow year will be over... I like to remember how my husband says that New Year's is a dumb holiday, because it's arbitrary - EVERY DAY is the beginning of a new year. So, I try to remember that this "season" isn't dictated by dates on the calendar and approach each new day as if it is the first day of my next, very fertile, season. Because, as Elder Holland said last conference: "the great thing about the gospel is we get credit for trying, even if we don't always succeed." I wept at those words. I needed to be reminded in the middle of all this fallow, all this failure, that the Lord doesn't really care about "success", so much as where the desire of my heart is and where my efforts are...
Wow. You never cease to amaze me. That was beautiful! You are so good to find the positive and stay focused on what is most important. You are my hero.... I really do mean that - I admire you so much and am grateful for your example. I love you my sister!
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