Green Thumb Therapy
I’ve been having a really hard time the last couple of weeks, and I just feel like I need to get it all out. After our little vacation back home I’ve found myself in the dark place, more often than not. We truly had such a wonderful time back in Charlotte, with our family and friends, It has made settling back into our routine here in PA that much harder for me. The burden lays on my shoulders, as I’m the reason we are here in the first place. I’m the one who decided almost five years ago to move up here without knowing a single soul. I left my entire family and my biggest supporters back in Charlotte and thought I’d make something better of myself here. I know I was brought here for a reason; we got engaged here, had our baby here, bought our first home here. We have even managed to make a handful of some really great friends. However, now I am so ready to fly South. Not just for the winter, but forever. The last few weeks I have become consumed in the thought of moving back. I was hoping that somehow things would workout and I’d be home by the end of the summer. It isn’t looking like that is going to be at all possible for us. I won’t bore you with the details, just know that we have gone over every single scenario and it just isn’t the right time for us now and it is literally breaking my heart.
For the last few weeks I have had a pit in my stomach. The weight of the world, my world resting on my shoulders and my entire body aches in knowing it. I’ve woken up every day with a headache, and by lunch time I feel like I’ve run a marathon. I catch myself tearing up while listening to a song in the car, watching my husband work on the house, and watching my little girl run around and play. We don’t have a bad life here and I’m grateful for everything that we have. I just know that my little girl’s life would be so much fuller if we were surrounded by family. I’ve been doing my best to keep everything in check, in hopes of not reaching the state of depression that seems paralyzing. I wish I could put on my vintage red shoes, click my heels and wish myself home, but unfortunately that isn’t how life works. After reaching the decision this week, that it would be best to delay our plans another year, my heart sank into my shoes. I know that we are making the right choice, but why does it still feel like there is an elephant sitting on my chest? Why am I still struggling to smile?
I had reached the ultimate low this past week when my daughter’s silly little antics didn’t get me smiling. My patience was running thin, I was irritable and feeling constant pressure to do something, anything to get me out of under this dark cloud. The fact that I didn’t want to be around my family, make eye contact with anyone or even get out of bed was even more upsetting to me and it was just adding to the heaviness in my heart. I just wanted to be left alone. This is my fault, why this two year job opportunity will turn five this November. Have I really been away from my beloved city and family so long? I’ve become accustomed to doing everything on my own for so long, and I’m finally just exhausted. Does it make me a terrible woman if I’m now begging for help. I’ve done the “living alone” and independent thing. I’ve always taken chances and moved away from my family twice now, made new friends, have started all over and made an art of creating a life of my own. I’ve spent weeks alone caring for my daughter while trying to maintain a full time job while my husband is away. I’ve been everything that I was raised to be. So why do I still feel like I’m letting everyone down?
After days of feeling like the biggest failure and complete waste of space, my husband and I were fortunate enough to get one of our “date days” this past Friday. Where we both take a day off of work and bring the baby to daycare and we just spend the day doing whatever we want. We started off with breakfast at one of my favorite places in Lancaster County, the Tomato Pie Cafe. That is where we both finally got to catch our breaths from all the doom and gloom. We ate some yummy food and just enjoyed each other. It was absolutely gorgeous out and the pit in my stomach was getting smaller and smaller. We went to a local farm to get fresh fruits, flowers and plants. And I was able to spend the rest of the afternoon adding to my succulent garden, and sprucing up our patio. It was exactly what I needed, some green thumb therapy. I got to walk the isles of the farm and search for the perfect additions to our garden. I got to put on my gardening gloves and plan out where these beautiful plants were to be set. By the time the afternoon was over and it was time to pick up our little stinker, I was sweaty and covered with dirt. The dirt on my face complimented the dirt on my hands, knees, and shoes. All while getting filthy dirty and over heated I had failed to realize that I was starting to smile. As I cleaned up the patio of spilled dirt and weeds I stopped and looked at my work. It was beautiful and I have found myself walking to the back of the house all weekend just staring at the individual plants and smiling from ear to ear.
We got to enjoy the patio and each other on Saturday. The whole family laying around, playing with the dog, blowing bubbles with our little girl and just taking in the life that we have created here in PA. The hubster grilled some yummy eats and we had a wonderful evening before he had to leave for Canada Sunday morning. It was a perfect sunny day. The summer of 2017 will be another season spent among the stars of Lancaster County. We’ll enjoy the fresh fruits and veggies from the local farms. We’ll cherish every day that my daughter can go to her amazing daycare, and we’ll enjoy every sunny day we get relaxing on our patio and staring at our garden. My husband and I are the King and Queen of moving and making a new life away from home, and we’ll continue making the best of our temporary stay here. To my beautiful baby girl and my adoring husband, I’m so sorry. I’ll do my best to keep the clouds away and stay out of the dark place this year, but I know I’ll have a few slip ups along the way. Until the day we can all say good-bye to Pennsylvania, I’ll be anxiously awaiting the day when we can call Charlotte home again.
~Melvi
