The Garden
All of my garden had gone to weeds. I didn’t see it happening, though I spent so very much of my time inside of that expansive patch of growth. I started out planting flowers to echo the brightness of my existance, even when my life outside of the garden was not a happy one. I could come to gather here, in the garden, to give my mind a break from all of the rigors of our modern society and my role within it. Friends would gather in the garden with me, some to share their thoughts and stories of their life and others just to watch the flowers grow and enjoy our company. We spent years in the garden. I personally spent hours upon hours of every day there, moving around stones to make new pathways and planting different colored roses and daisies and whatever sprang to mind, tending the space until I felt it was perfect.
Around the time that I felt it actually was perfect, at least perfection in my own opinion, my life outside of the garden had become better. Well, it had become everything I had strived for, all of the hours spent dreaming of a different life while in the garden had given me insight as to how to change the rest of my life: my work and personal relationships and responsibility as a parent and where I was living and where I was trying to go and be. Everything was coming together.
I still spent time in the garden, and so much more actually. Hours upon hours became, literally, entire days spent surrounded by the flora I’d nurtured. Sometimes I would only leave it to sleep. Other times I would fall asleep inside of it.
And then one day I realized that I not only no longer enjoyed being in the garden, but that all of my flowers had turned to weeds. I was now visiting the garden simply for the sake of being there, because I couldn’t think of anything else to do. All of my ideas of romance and escape and my personal dreams had become petty bickering over politics and religion and all of the things that I had come to the garden to escape.
I wanted to burn it to the ground in that instant, but even as I had the gasoline and match available, just a flick of the wrist away, I couldn’t do it. I was afraid, as I have always been afraid, that I would have no idea what to do without it.
I’m still in the garden and dreaming, but now I dream of how I’ll get out of it one day.
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