Bounce Back
“I don’t think this plant will bounce back by spring,” my husband said as he gestured to the potted plant next to our outdoor table. We both laughed, looking at the stick leaning over with broken branches dangling from it. Some things, I thought, just don’t bounce back. It made me think of the peace lily that was sent to me four years ago. I had just this morning found an old blog post that I had written about it and added it to the current chapter of my book. Here is what I wrote on October 7, 2019:
There's a peace lily in my office that sits on top of a bookshelf. I've had it for a year and a half now, it was one of the flowers that was sent after my brother died. For a few months that Spring and Summer it looked alive and well and sprouted many lilies one after another. But for at least a year now, it has remained barren.
I still keep it for obvious reasons, but apart from any sentimental attachments it's still a plant. I like to have plants around, I think they add a certain something that inanimate objects lack. Unfortunately, with this plant, upon close examination you can see that the tips of almost all the leaves are brown. If you do some research you would discover that this is a sign of either too much water or too little water. I still don't understand how that can possibly be a sufficient answer, but here we are. With that being the only knowledge to carry me I kept watering it more, and then less, trying to find the magic formula to get it to look lively again. It was, however, to no avail because it really did just look dead. Not dead enough where I gave up, but enough that I knew it wasn't looking the way it should.
Then finally, last month, I took a pair of sheers and started clipping away some of the worst leaves. Petal by petal, leaf by leaf, it started to look more alive. What I hadn't realized was that new leaves had been trying to grow in all along, but the old dead ones were blocking the light and not allowing them to thrive. What's funny about this process is that I didn't have to add anything to make it more healthy. All this time I kept wanting to give it more water, more sun, more something to fix it. But it didn't need more, it needed less; I just had to take away the parts that were killing it. This is something that I already knew in theory. I've watched Planet Earth, I even used to be a Science teacher, this is no new concept for me and yet in practice it is so much harder to cut away a piece of something.
Sometimes in life we need to do that. We need to clip away the things that are holding us down, that are pulling us back, and that are snuffing out the light from reaching us. It could be certain people, or habits, and for us to be filled with life we need to get rid of them. And don't be fooled as I was with my little plant. Cutting off those pieces will be no easy task, because parts look bad but other parts look good, and we make excuses for them. We convince ourselves we need to keep this certain thing in our life, maybe we'll miss it or maybe it's just a fear of disappointing others. What will people think if we don't say yes to helping at the charity event or if we say no to that group camping trip? Will they understand I need time with my family? Or will they judge me for not needing the same thing they need?
Just because something is a good choice for someone else, and even inherently good in nature, doesn't mean it's a good choice for you. If I gave my orchid the same water and light I gave my peace lily it would be dead in days. Every plant is different.
Do you have any dead leaves that you are holding onto? Maybe it's time to let them go. Free yourself up and leave some room for the light to come in. You never know what will grow in its place.
As you can see from the photo included, my plant did eventually bounce back. Clearing away the old leaves was all it needed. Now there are not only new healthy green leaves but the white flowers have been spouting up all season. It took a while, but it got there and if you're trying to bounce back from something don't worry, you'll get there too.
