Creators Corner,  Interludes

It’s Time to be a Tender of Words Once More

September 3, 2022

“A garden requires patient labor and attention. Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions. They thrive because someone expended effort on them.”

– Liberty Hyde Bailey

I haven’t been a good gardner of late.
It’s a weird feeling for me. Over the last six years, I’ve done a fantastic job with my personal life. I’ve moved up with stupendous speed at work and am on the threshold of yet another promotion. My wife reminds me on a constant basis of just how proud she is of me, of how much I’ve grown, of how much I’ve sharpened my sense of empathy and consideration until it has become my most defining attribute. 
At work, at home, and even just in random social interactions, I see my growth reflected back to me on the faces of those I meet. It has been wonderful, humbling, and fulfilling all at the same time. 
Yet, as I refocus my weight loss and take upon myself once more the burdens of my own health and all of my future plans, I find that there is one part of my life that has gone too long without care. An overgrown, weed-infested plot of land that was once a carefully tended garden. The gates and tomato stands are overrun with ivy. The earthy smell of quiet decay is omnipresent. 
I’ve accomplished so much, grown so much, and yet I’ve let this most-vital part of myself become something I no longer even see. Every time I sit down to carefully and patiently begin the work of repair, I quail at the monumental task before me. I see all the planning and effort that was sunk into every portion of my writing garden choked with the weeds that I allowed to take root and it fills me with despair. 
Yes, I can blame the world around me. It would be a damnably easy thing to do. We live in very interesting times, indeed. 
When all is said and done, however, I am the one that made the decision to choose my own leisure over my future. I am the one that spent my time on idle pursuits rather than maintaining the things I’d given up so much to grow. 
It’s a hard thing to admit you’ve made a mistake. It’s an even harder thing to roll up your sleeves and begin the long and laborious road that leads to a clean, well-tended garden once more. No one could blame me for deciding it was too much. No one would blame me for starting over with something fresh. I could choose to bury everything that had come before so that none could see my shame.
I am not that person, however. I am the man that cares, especially for those things which have become lost and are most in need of attention. It would be a disservice to myself, to the man I have become and to the man I still wish to be, to allow such an important part of my life to become an embarrassment better left buried. 
I am sick of burying my talents. Sick beyond measure at my constant retreat from the problems in my life. So, much as I have done with my weight, much as I have done with my work, I must now brave the thorns and brambles my lack of care has created in my word plot.  
I know that I can do this, I just hate how much I’ll have to fight myself the whole time. 
Gardenfully,
The Unsheathed Quill

Teller of tales. Horrible liar. Fair hand at video games and card games.

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