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This week on my mind…
Weeds have taken over my life.
I’m trying to tame my Bad Twin™️.
I made a horrible misSTEAK.
In The Weeds 🌿
Jacob always wants me to help with the yard. It’s not that I don’t want to. I really would love that luxury. But I take care of so many other daily things around the house that can’t carry one more thing in my big beautiful brain. He doesn’t mind taking on the mental load the yard demands, which is no small feat. It’s a big garden and, thanks to my landscape architect father-in-law, is home to many different kinds of plants with specific needs we usually can’t keep up with.
The one thing I can help with, now more than ever since we stopped having a regular gardener come because we’re in between jobs, is helping pull weeds.
I usually avoid weeding because I don’t have the time. See, once I start weeding, I really can’t stop. I normally don’t get addicted to things (except for shopping and Candy Crush). And, I’m not even a completionist. I’m totally fine to stop reading a book or jump shark on a podcast if I’m bored. But once I decide to start, I make those weeds my bitch. It’s all-consuming. I yank, pull, dig, and sweat until I have to stop. If I didn’t finish the section I was working on, it haunts me until the job is done.
I don’t have time for this unhinged obsessiveness right now. But maybe it’s what I really need to help slow down my mind.
Last Sunday, the whole family hanging out in the yard, so I decided to pull a few weeds in the strawberry patch, which had become truly overrun. Well, once I started, I could not be stopped. I knew I would regret the amount of mosquito bites incurred but I carried on, cleaning up about a quarter of the area. It felt great.
The next day, on my way back to the house from taking out the garbage, I glanced at the part of the yard where my half-done project lay. “Don’t do it, Heather. You have emails to respond to.”
“But…”
“No! Work! Go send your emails!”
“But…”
“Ugh, fine. ONE WEED. You get ONE WEED.”
Fifteen or twenty minutes later, I huffed back into the house to rehydrate with some iced coffee, naturally. Dirt covered my hands, my freshly manicured hands. Of course, I decided to pick up this hobby the week I decided to finally indulge in getting my nails done after many months.
I have intentionally exercised maybe once or twice in almost two years. I’m always moving, but never with the intention of doing so. My body is like a machine on autopilot. This is because there is always manual labor to be done around the house.
Also, I don’t like exercising. 🙅♀️🙅♀️🙅♀️ I don’t derive pleasure or restoration from exercise the way some people do. But, I am a human being so being physical does feel good––especially when you’re taking out pent-up anger about a recent toxic work environment on invasive plant species.
My friend and former colleague recently announced that he had decided to leave his career as a creative in advertising because he was feeling lonely working from home. Though he’s also a visual artist, he has been craving physical, in-person labor. So, he got a job with UPS working in a warehouse. Perfectly content. What a badass move.
Maybe I’ll eventually feel this way too. Once I find the time to finish weeding, and the 25 mosquito bites I incurred during this endeavor finally go away.
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