garden of life

"I'm out to the battlefield," I stepped through my screen door and was greeted by such a wave of heat, my church clothes were sticky immediately.
"May the force be with you." my mum replied, thinking herself witty.

When I say 'battlefield', I'm hardly underestimating. My garden in the backyard seemed like it was under alien invasion. You couldn't even tell I have lillies or whatever I planted last year. More of what mum planted.
Looking at that green, forest, it was rather humorous. My poor neighboors had to endure that sore sight for the whole spring and summer. As long as their whiney, screaming children suffered, I don't feel much remorse.
Nevertheless, it was rather morbid. I took out my phone and snapped a picture. Sending it to my heart, John, I wrote, "My garden. xD It needs some work."
"Just a tad." he texted back. His sarcasm has never been sharper.
Just a tad? Someone could quite literally be lost in that jungle. And I, armed with hatchet and spear, must enter it and hack it all down, and save their poor, tortured souls.


I don't even know why the idea crossing my mind that wearing khaki pants and a little sweater in ninety degree weather wasn't a good idea. Or the fact it'd be worse weeding. I'm not to bright with a little thing called common sense at times. I lied. I really mean all the time.
Obviously, I instantly regretted it as I pulled on the dishwashing gloves (we didn't have any gardening gloves that weren't covered in spider poo or whatever it was.) and faced the music. I wasn't one inch into that monster and my knees were already up in plants pretending to be daisies.
As I pulled and ripped ruthlessly, I began to think. This garden (if you will) is very much like life.
When we don't keep up on things, erasing the 'stuff' we don't need, it grows and grows until we're being choked. Everything gets out of control and we have to work three times as hard getting rid of it than we did planting what we did want and need.

Up until that point of my thought train, I found myself staring down a gigantic tan spider resting on a black-eyed susan. Needless to say, it's rhetorical to ask my reaction. I must have jumped back four feet in one quick movement.

"Ohmygod, I was just face to face with a spider!" I texted to John, still recovering.
"Ahhhhh" was his response.

'Ahhhh' indeed.

It took me a few short minutes to get back into gear. I cautiously checked every flower I went by to make sure no deadly tarantulas were creeping about. Before too long, I was ripping every suspicious plant out of the soil mercilessly, lily or not.
I began to ponder again as sweat formed on my brow.

Even we do get motivated to start cleaning our 'weeds' out from our lives, we start out pretty good, but then we get lazy. We tear out the bigguns, but leave the tiny ones that are just beginning because we don't feel like bending over and trying to pull them out.

Fifteen minutes later I ran back in the house, done done DONE with all this dandelion and chinese lantern business.

If you really want to know, all I accomplished was making the stone path visible. To hell with the other weeds poking out on the sides.