The New Normal

While this blog's main bent is an outlet for my pithy and entertaining (at least to me) observations of life from a landscape junkie's point of view, I do reserve the 'right' to wax from time to time about things that might not always be so sparkly and pretty.

The last year and half has been really difficult. We lost my former husband, my father and my former husband's step-dad, in an 11 month period. If we expand our time frame back to March of 2011, we also include my grandfather. Four men of our collective family. I know that the mid-century mark is when this stuff starts happening to one, but I wasn't prepared to be this strong for the people who rightfully need to crumple in the wake of such devastation, myself included. My resilience has, humanly, been imperfect. My friends, clients and family, in particular my husband who spent rather a lot of 2012 without me, have been an amazing support. Being able to write freely and frankly is cathartic.

Today feels like I've found a small piece of myself again. A design project has moved into the install phase, propelling me into a flurry of activity, which reminds me how good it feels to orchestrate, well, just about anything. Perhaps its being in charge or having control over processes after having no control whatsoever. In this, a bustle of organization is also in process. Not that organization is something that is ever very far from my orbit, but one lets things slide that aren't critical during times of crisis and times that follow. All the saved articles are sorted and reviewed. The pile, thankfully small, of Quicken entries is not overwhelming. E-mail is under control. S'ok.

And so now, feeling entirely virtuous about the state of affairs in the office, I am heading to the garden to enjoy the late afternoon light. And pursue what is considered the best, and least expensive, of all therapies: Weed, prune and stir the landscape. It's what my loved ones would want me to do. It's how I take care of myself. Y'all do the same.