bloom where you are planted

i am a wanderer by nature.
a nomad perhaps.
i am in love with places i have never seen,
and i am in love with people i have never met.
for those reasons alone i find it unbearable to stop in one place.
the thought of settling in ONE place FOREVER,
no matter how endearing the place,
is enough to drive me mad.
i began my first excursion almost 15 years ago.
and i'm still here.
can hardly admit that i haven't even wandered far within this place.
about 3-4 years ago i began to be strangled by this reality.
almost suffocated to death to be exact.
part of my soul began shriveling up.
i was beginning to lose a part of myself i deeply valued.
a friend unknowingly threw me a line as i was rapidly sinking to a bottom that i did not know.
"bloom where you are planted."
that is what she said.
the message echoed in my mind constantly.
bloom where you are planted.
bloom where you are planted.
i am not one to take a personal development challenge lightly.
i decided that somehow i would bloom even though i could feel nothing but shriveling.
so, my first step was to make a pillow.
i could have made anything;
i just needed a constant, visual reminder.
i stared at that pillow often,
hoping it would whisper a formula that could help me bloom.
or better yet just make me bloom.
all the staring didn't change me,
but i did begin to come up with a strategy that did.
embrace.
that was all i was going to do.
there were things that brought me here in the first place that i had neglected to remember.
i had exhausted those reasons,
and i no longer longed for the things that brought me here.
but i was here,
to my dismay or not,
so i was going to bloom by finding new things to embrace.
that is exactly what i did.
i found things to love.
i stretched.
i met new people.
i connected with people in a way i had not expected to do here.
i took up new interests.
i got involved in sam's school.
i started seeing my mountains differently.
i began to be present in my job, my family, and my life.
i abandoned the parts of this place that were beginning to exhaust me.
and, i began to bloom.
i blossomed.
i stopped focusing so much on the places i longed to be,
and i just stayed rooted here.
that was my only real choice considering my circumstances.
a couple of years have passed.
i have since made a pillow for my friend who gave me the advice.
she was moving to new york city and was afraid about blooming there.
i eventually stopped salivating at her opportunity,
and i can say i bloomed.
i got rid of my pillow today.
as you can clearly see it has been well used.
i have gone through many seasons of blooming, withering, and blooming again.
perhaps i'm even withering a bit now.
i know the blossom will inevitably come again.
i'm just hoping i have the chance to bloom on the coast someday or bloom in countries far from the only one i've ever known,
and i wouldn't complain about a blossom on the east coast either.
sigh.

all in a day's work

when i say work i'm not referring to the 8:30 am-8:30 pm haircutting schedule i had today.
and i'm not talking about the emotional and physical work out of getting a child to school.
nor am i referring to having to doctor my baby's bloody foot while i worked.
i'm talking about killing a rat.
in the midst of the previous workday i just described,
i had to kill a rat.
a big rat.
a rat that was in my back yard,
a rat that my six year old son was holding captive with a set of post hole diggers.
that's the rat i killed.
it would have been nice if our kitty would have killed it.
she is the one who tipped us off to it.
she was taunting sam's 5 ft deep x 1.5 foot wide hole that he dug in our back yard.
i had a feeling what was down there.
however, i was guessing a little mouse,
not a big daddy rat!
will, maggie, and i squirmed and gawked a bit,
then i came in to do a haircut.
a few minutes later will came in with a chunk of cheese.
he wanted to feed it to the rat,
but he wanted me to come with him for fear the rat would jump out.
in an attempt to convince him the hole was too big for the rat to jump out,
i promised him that if the rat jumped out i would give him $100.
what he heard was "if the rat gets out of the hole, then my my mom will give me $100."
3 minutes later maggie came in with news that will had the rat out of the hole.
she is NOT a storyteller,
so i ran immediately to the back yard.
there will was, clamping the rat between the post setters.
i thought "GREAT! what am i going to do with this rat!?"
i didn't think to drop him back into the hole until pete got home.
instead i thought to grab the shovel on the ground,
tell will to let it go,
and then i smacked the rat to death with the shovel.
i killed a rat.
all will could think to say was
"so, when do i get my $100."