The garden of my mind.

I’ve been thinking a lot about adulthood. I’ve been having growing pains, trying to find balance and certainty on my own two feet. I’m not quite there yet… This week I was so close to being balanced on my own, and then it was like this little gust of wind came and knocked my just a little off kilter. And I toppled.

I’m learning that it’s not an overnight, or particularly easy transition. Becoming a fully functional, independent adult is a constant learning process.

And with these musings, I’ve also been thinking a lot about childhood and the lessons (and traumas) I have carried with me up until this point. Because if therapy has taught me one thing, it’s that so much of who we are as adults is influenced by how we were raised, what we experienced in those fundamental and impressionable years.

And then, I think to myself, oh isn’t it fun to have a therapy session on a Friday afternoon that gets you to think about the entire trajectory of your life and ends with you contemplating everything about yourself and then, oops our session is up…? Enjoy your weekend of existential angst and inner turmoil… (insert sarcastic laugh).

Now perhaps that’s a little over dramatic, and don’t get me wrong I love my therapist, but the sentiment is there. I have been left, on my lonesome, to process everything that our one hour session barely scratched the surface of.

It’s like that hour was just about pointing to things, questioning if they were indeed things we need to get into. So I scratched their surfaces and finding that yes, actually. This is something. It’s more like some things… and they’re all tangled and messy. But suddenly, our hour is over and nothing is fixed and now there are these raw, scratched up things that I must contend with.

Oh, such fun to unearth a little thing that was so comfortably buried in the moss and greenery of my mind. Yes, it had begun to sprout weeds, rather than flowers. And yes, if I didn’t prune the thing, then it would have had the potential to slowly destroy the beautiful and expansive garden surrounding it. But why do I have to do it by myself?

Now, let me just note, I am a very good solo gardener (stick with me and this metaphor).

I was an independent child, and I liked to deal with my thoughts and emotions on my own. (Still tyring to figure out if this was a coping mechanism for soemthing…) Anyways, I taught myself to look after the garden of my mind by myself. I learnt how to water the plants and care for the flowers. I became a very good gardener.

Now I can spend all day in my garden. I like to prune the trees and plants, tend to the broken branches and water everything just right. I often sing to the flowers and watch as they bloom. I enjoy just pottering around the garden, listening to the birds sing, watching the bees buzz around the trees. The garden of my mind is beautiful. But sometimes it’s very lonely.

And some days I find myself afraid of being alone, afraid of all the weeds sprouting up where they shouldn’t. Especially when I know I have to unearth those pesky weeds, those little things that need tending. Because what if their roots are long and tangled? What if I pull up one thing and it pulls up other things with it? What if I disrupt everything? Knowing me I probably will. I have very little restraint when it comes to digging things up.

That’s why it’s nice to have a friend, or a companion, or a therapist. Someone who can help you tend to your garden. Someone to help me dig things up gently, slowly, without disturbing the whole garden… To care for the little things and give them a home, or throw them out. This kind of gardening always takes longer than an hour long therapy session.

So here I am on a random Saturday, unsure if I can return to my garden, alone, to deal with the things I unearthed yesterday. Some things don’t seem too scary in the sunlight, but I know I have pulled up more than one thing. All the things I dug up are just lying there on the grass, still knotted together at the roots.

Childhood, fears, dreams from long ago, fire, power, discovery, water, truth, growing up, taxes, marriage, someone I used to be, new opportunities, mud, flowers, music.

I suppose there’s a lot of detangling to be done. A lot of understanding and learning to do. My younger self experienced a lot and it’s had a big impact on who I am now and how I’m coping with the new things life throws at me. I’m detangling slowly, growing more every day. And at least my therapy is being paid for.