What Would You Plant?

I stood there and realized that all the ground was toxic. All that had been good — my innocence, my boundless joy, my free spirited fire — had eroded away with tears that fell too often and too quickly. In each drop, there was too much dread, too much worry that I’d be found out. The consistent reconfirmation that I wasn’t kind enough, sweet enough, happy enough, lighthearted enough, just not enough when compared to the rosy lives of others.

So I grew to never want that: the teams of friends but not one to actually talk to; the forever home and the forever love where anger always lurked below the surface; the food that was forever on the table without love to fill the heart too.

I built up a greenhouse, all the walls transparent because I couldn’t stand a lie. And in each grain that made it up, lay the grains of truth that either no bond would ever be good enough or that I just did not have the tools to make one strong enough — forever bonded together in a structure I made impermeable.

So I would sit on the ground in the greenhouse wanting to plant something good to prove I had enough, but didn’t know what it took. All the ground was toxic and all the seeds I had were ones of worry, and as I planted each seed, specters of an unresolved past would rise up to haunt me. So I’d run to cut them down.

Over and over again I’d try to grow something good but I never had enough of what I needed and so I wept more and the ground became more toxic and water logged and the cycle would continue.

“So why not just give up and live here with nothing beautiful behind your transparent truth? Maybe that’s your enough and all you deserve.”

So I walked away and dropped the last kernel of worry that I had and instead choose to paint all the monsters that lived within, deeper still. With a brush I could define their jagged edges that bore holes into me, call to mind words to describe the hurts and fully articulate where it hurt in language made lyrical. And as I drew out the darker things the tears still flowed; now they were peppered with a deeper understanding; they dredged up the sediments that had been stuck way deep down where the hurt was still tender because those structures had been laid down by the hands of a child; the tears still fell now tinged with empathy, for my actions were in defense of that child who no longer wanted to hurt.

I cried as I realized she had turned into an adult who stood on toxic ground and could only plant worry seeds; I realized that the greenhouse I had built was not made of walls that were transparent, but a one way looking glass and while I could see out no one had been able to see in; I realized that the specters that I kept growing weren’t just the fears I’d been running from, they were me turning into exactly what that child had been afraid of.

So I turned back towards that last worry seed that I had planted in the ground that was too toxic and I let all the tears I’d been afraid to let fall go. I’d sit and weep and watch it grow; then turn to paint something beautiful and dark and real, fighting to see past enchanting ideals to what I had to offer; then I’d use words to seal it in; and the cycle of tears and paints and words continued and I’d look outside at the fires and bullets and bombs knowing no one could see within, knowing I wasn’t ready to go out, knowing that in some strange removed way we managed to coexist without affecting one another while still affecting one another; knowing that I could only add more pain if I left before I was ready and used hands fumbling with ignorance to work to fix with eyes clouded by anger and hurt.

So I stayed.

Then I stopped because nothing was growing and I thought I had done something wrong; that the ground had become so toxic and that I was so broken from all the pieces that had been loosened by tears and fallen apart that nothing, not even specters, wanted to grow. At the bottom of the space that I had now cleared away I fell and sat beside her, the child, and covered my eyes in shame, afraid to meet her gaze.

Then tiny hands took my face and raised it and I realized I was staring into the eyes of one who held much wisdom. She turned my face to see the paintings I had drawn; the words that had spilled from shaky fingers; what I had created from hands that were just brave enough to dip deep down into the darkest pit to grasp the hands of a scared child that had grown up to think that she was unlovable and thus not capable of nurturing anything from a soil made toxic by doubt. But there all around me was proof of some other truth. As that child now took my hand to show me all the beauty that had been created from the mess.

And then I looked around to realize that all along these beautiful weeds had grown up against the edges of my greenhouse. Multicolored flowers and different vibrant green leaves that had bonded together to form a ring around the structure I had hid behind. They had thrived because they could weather the storm and they believed that the soil I’d nurtured was just what they needed.

That it was enough.