“What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candor, and more unashamed conversation….”
– Glenn Close
The Boxwood plant (that’s one of mine, pictured, left) is my spirit plant. Yes, I know most people have spirit animals, but since when have I been like most people? Plus, this bush is a beast, so that qualifies it as both plant and animal. Most importantly, it’s what I relate to right now, so let me stretch the metaphor, if only as a segue to the lesson it taught me.
Once upon a time there were three Boxwoods – small, medium, and large – living on either side and in front of my house. Their sizes (and subsequent names) were the result of haphazard yard maintenance over the course of two decades. The small and medium Boxwoods were in easy-to-reach places, and thus got more attention, while their larger sibling was often left for “later” (which quickly turned into never). By the time I became the sole groundskeeper, the uppermost branches were higher than I could reach, so I moaned and groaned, trimming only the sides, and watched helplessly as it morphed from “simply overgrown” to full fledged eyesore.
After three years of hand-wringing, I knew I only had two options: hang a sign explaining to my neighbors that I’m simply too short to deal with this monster OR prune deep into the belly of the beast.
I’d Googled and researched and (sort of) knew what I was doing. Boxwoods left to run amok turn brown inside (note the work-in-progress pictured, left), because their growth is too dense to let sunlight beneath their top layer. Pruning it back to a reasonable height meant I’d have something awkward and ugly for at least this season (maybe longer?). But considering what I had was also awkward and ugly, just in a different way, I figured it was worth a try, and grabbed my lobbers.
I’ve been divorced for three years now. Abandoned for almost four. My outermost edges, like the leaves of a Boxwood, remain green and provide more than adequate camouflage for the lack of growth underneath. But I’m tired of being brown inside, parts of me desperate to be seen, buried beneath all the things that demanded my attention while I justified ignoring myself. Dealing with the pain I can easily reach isn’t enough anymore, so I’ve been trying to make deeper cuts, let more sunlight in.
Look at my little Boxwood now. Notice how even the ground around it couldn’t grow anything, while living in the shadow of that monster? Both the bush and the soil are showing signs of life and I have no regrets about the extreme makeover I’ve given it, although I still feel like I need to hang a sign on it, asking my neighbors for patience and apologizing for the (different) eyesore.
My formerly large, now extra small Boxwood sits right next to my driveway, so I see it every time I leave and every time I return. Some days I wince at how raw and vulnerable it looks; others I walk over and cheer it on, praising any signs of new growth and apologizing for the awkward phase it’s enduring. I should remember to do that with myself. Maybe I need a sign around my neck, too? “Growth in progress. I won’t be like this forever.”