I turn twenty-seven years old today, and you want to know what I learned on the way from running errands? I am the detour queen.
In general, I just don’t expend energy beyond what’s needed. I will confront things as necessary, however I’m very much mindful, and very demure with my approach to life.
As I’m driving home, I see flashing lights and emergency vehicles. I know MANY people who would be curious and want to see how far they could get before being forced to turn around. But see ME, I immediately find the nearest detour. I’d rather cut my losses early than be stuck in a mess. In some cases, it can seem dramatic, but it protects my energy, my time, and sometimes my resources.
Some weeks back, though, I was washing dishes with my favorite scrub brush. It’s one of those doohickies where you fill the hollow plastic handle with dish soap and the top is a sponge that you replace often. It replenishes itself as you clean; I love it for convenience.
Well, that morning it broke on me. I had no backups, just some dish rags. It broke in a way that I could only continue to use it if I manually held it together, however, I was at the point in my load of dishes where I was almost done. There was no point in stopping where I was when I was basically at the finish line. It was slightly annoying, but I made it through. Would I bear it any longer than I did? Absolutely not.
As convenient as my scrub brush was when things were working, as soon as it broke and circumstances changed, the functionality changed, and my feelings about its value changed.
This stuck with me.
Sometimes we're called to some uncomfortable seasons and uncomfortable transitions in life – ones we didn’t ask for or even prepare for. Last year, and even some of the beginning of this year, as much as I’ve had great victories, I’ve also grieved some incredible losses. I walked away from my first big girl job in healthcare and planted my feet in education – a change that was a much better fit for my home life mentally, spiritually, and physically. I scaled down my crochet business to lessen burnout and enjoy the art of it all again. I started saying no to many opportunities that were just no longer a fit for me. I changed what I desired from relationships close to me so I could feel safe in them. All in all, I made some hard decisions, and just as much as they were essential for my health and wellness, they still felt just as uncomfortable and took work.
To get to the point where I was even open to change, I had to sit with a few thoughts. For starters: “Jasmine, are you living or just existing?”
Was I really going 110% all the time because I wanted to or felt I needed to? Was I the Jack of all Trades because everything I was doing was a joy, or because people saw my talents and imagined me everywhere and doing everything, so then I felt pressured to be everywhere doing everything?
I had to sit with my thoughts and unprocessed feelings to figure out what were my boundaries before I could ever establish them with someone else. If we cannot place healthy limitations on ourselves, it’s irrational to expect others to live up to that standard. We can’t expect others to treat us how we don’t treat ourselves, first.
And then I sat with, “Is the level of safety you require at this current stage in life conducive to all the places you keep putting yourself in?” Ouch.
More often than not, a lot of life is based on our choices. We must be proactive in going after what we want. This principle also applies when we aren’t getting what we want currently, and we must choose to leave to find what that is.
Eventually, this clicked for me, and I started cutting out things that no longer served me, but it still didn’t feel good. Every good decision we make won’t initially feel good if the decision also requires us to change something in ourselves. However, we can make the transitions a little more bearable.
One of my favorite sorority sisters recently shared this, “Something my grandma used to say to me hit me like a ton of bricks tonight. It was something she would seemingly randomly say inside and outside the kitchen...‘Clean up as you go.’ I remember questioning her about it one time and her reply was so simple, but it meant so much: ‘If you make a mess, clean it before it turns into a bigger mess. Clean as you go.’ That was her life’s philosophy. When she let a situation go, I knew that meant she did everything she could to either clean it herself or help someone get to a manageable point.” -Brittany B.
So simple but so profound. There are times in life when what worked before will no longer work where you’re headed. As uncomfortable as it is, clean as you go. When you leave situations gracefully not only do you dissipate regret, worry, and ill feelings, but later when you finally get to your target destination, the uncomfortable-but-necessary transition will make so much sense. You’ll be able to enjoy newness with a clean heart and a clean slate.
In all my loss and grief, I eventually figured out that all I wanted in the end was something from nothing. Though I felt like I was at a deficit, I wanted something worthwhile to come of it.
My plants teach me real-life lessons. In transitioning from place to place physically when I moved into a new home, and then transitioning from growing in pots to finally growing in-ground, I lost a lot of my plants and a lot of growth. It takes time for roots to adjust to new places so a lot of the outward blooms and foliage suffered. Some things just did not agree with being moved at all and died during the transtion. I grieved not being as far as I should be in my gardening journey.
Pictured: Butterfly Bush beginning to bloom.
Until…
…Until I learned to be content with the little I had.
…Until I relearned the principle that if I cannot be consistent with my small garden, how can I ever have acres and acres like I desire?
…Until it clicked that the longer I held on to what was, the longer it’d take me to build this new space into something beautiful.
I learned to (again) find the joy in the small things. I became SO content with seeing every single little butterfly among the wildflowers,
that when a new species would come, I could really appreciate the beauty of it all – the beauty that comes from struggle.
In the end, I never truly lost anything; I only gained wisdom, patience, discernment, direction, and depth in God.
Before I knew it, one day when I couldn’t leave work for lunch my husband sent me a video of a black butterfly hovering around my herb garden – a section of which I specifically grew to attract a certain black butterfly.
As soon as I could, I rushed home and sure enough…there were eggs.
I was in shock. Though I was BEYOND happy with this, there was more waiting for me.
A week or so later I find myself recording a wasp I found in my flower garden.
Unknown by me during the video, it’s a Monarch caterpillar just chillin' in the background. Not just one...but three!!! Something special was manifesting right under my nose and I had no idea. Also, some wasps are predators to caterpillars, so this was nothing short of a miracle especially for an endangered species.
This last month I experienced raising two species I have never encountered personally before in this way.
Pictured: Eastern Black Swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes) and Monarch (Danaus plexippus) caterpillars and butterflies.
Long story short, I received double for the wait time. I leaned into change and was blessed in the end for it. If God can do that with plants and butterflies, I have faith he can blow my mind in ALL areas of my life.
In all the years and all the plants I’ve had, I didn’t need the fanciest or the most extravagant garden, I just had to be prepared and patient for MY time…
It’s finally my time…God bless these twenty-somethings.
Photography: Light+Free by Abigail Handy
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