I hate spring

The gardener in me cannot stay out of the backyard. I am drawn to it like moths to a flame and it kills me every day I stroll about. There's the lilac where Degan is buried, the crabapple the kids got me for Mother's Day, what, 12 years ago? The rose I dug up from Virginia's yard before she moved to Seattle, the July blooming irises from Diane's garden, the native Columbine I brought from the Whitingham house, along with the heliotrope from there. All the hostas and daylilies from Tom & Thomas....how can I ever replace these things? I can't take them all with me and if I could, what would I chose to leave behind? How could I ever decide. Each has its own history, its own memory and its own place in my heart.

These gardens, these plants have been such an enormous part of who I am and what I do for so long and I will never again have the time, incentive or health to reinvent similar gardens. And even if I could, they would never be the same. None would hold the memories, the stories, the joy of these.

I am drowning in spring fever with no place to take it. The sadness paralyzes me. When there is so much to be done, I want to climb under the covers and pretend this is all a bad dream. I need a dose of Maureen's wisdom to reframe myself...again. It's all I do lately. Emote, stifle, regroup; emote, stifle, regroup. Any and every possible distraction is seized upon like a drug...anything to keep from facing the reality of this state of being.

And I want to slap myself for it! It's not like I don't have a great place to go; it's not like it won't be quite wonderful in its own way, being there. I just hate that its not my idea but being shoved down my throat by the courts who saw Jim at his illustrious best as he spun out his false interpretation of the events. He's so good at lying, no one can top him and, without knowing him, he's so easy to believe. I can't go to the place that makes me so bitter about how our society treats women....I just can't go there.

I don't hate spring. I just hate this one.