The Right Time

That day at the end of July...

I was a mess--Boss was 1300 miles away and I couldn't control him or anything he was doing, SK had chosen to go back to school early, the babies were about to be a junior and senior in high school and I couldn't stop that. I was trying to embrace the letting go, oh, and Chris was traveling....

I had already cleaned every baseboard in the house; I had already thrown out more clothes and clutter and still I didn't feel better. In fact I felt worse. So, I decided to do yard work in the hot blistering sun. I was hoping the feelings of powerlessness, fear and anxiety that had taken up residence in my gut would flow out of me with the sweat that soaked my clothes within minutes.

I started in the front yard pulling weed after weed after weed--after 2 hours I stepped back to look at my "progress" and burst into tears. Despite the piles of weeds on the sidewalk and driveway waiting to be bagged, the beds looked the same. It felt just like my life--tons of effort and hard work and very little to show...yep, I was spiraling into a funk. I should have gone inside.

Instead I decided to go to the back bed and weed. It was smaller; the weeds were bigger; surely I would see the results I craved. AND I could uncover the peonies I so loved. I went to the back and started pulling brush out quickly and in huge heaps, and then through the tears that were stinging my eyes as they mixed with  sweat and dirt from my hands as I continually swiped at them with frustrated ungloved hands, I saw them--

When we moved in almost 7 years ago I was thrilled to learn I had 2 beautiful peony bushes. The downside was they were way in the back and not visible from anywhere except the far back fence. Every spring as I cleared out the bed I promised myself I would transplant them in the fall as this was the "right" time according to gardening experts (of which I am clearly not).

Every fall came and with it the frantic schedules, and so every fall went and the peonies never were transplanted. Spring came again and with it the "promise" of this year I would get them moved. As I was pulling back the weeds in July I was again making my mental promise...

I pulled back the last of the brush and there they were--brown, dry, and brittle. All my promises and dreams of beautiful peony bushes snapped and with it my self imposed pity party. I decided I would dig them up and transplant them right then. I fully recognized they were probably beyond the resuscitation stage, but I was going to try.

I tenderly dug around the plants and gently pulled them from the ground. I decided to put them in an also overgrown semi-dead planter where I could monitor them (read pray for a miracle). As I continued to work suddenly I was filled with a lightness and unexplained hope. Instead of total despair over those beautiful bushes I thought about the lesson they were teaching
me.

I waited every year for the "right" time and every year the "right" time came and went and now there was a very good chance they wouldn't survive. Now there was a very good chance the time had come and gone, and there was only loss. I thought about how so often in our lives and in our relationships we wait for the "right" time--the right time to apologize, the right time to reach out to loved ones, the right time to try something new, the right time to follow our dreams...

And in all that waiting, I thought, the right time sometimes just passes us by leaving us with regret, leaving us with visions of what could have been, just leaving us.

Sometimes waiting for the right time leaves us powerless, leaves us frozen in time--sometimes we do have to wait, but I wondered, "how many times do we allow waiting for the "right" time to keep us from living?" Sometimes the right time even means letting go.

(And then I took the clippers to the hydrangea bush--right time or not, at least I saw progress...)