The Hoya

I've had a hard time coming here to write lately. Not sure why. Not inspired and worry I'm getting a bit boring with this process. I bore myself with it sometimes. I've been told it's "normal" to want to just be done with this whole grieving shit and to just move on. However, like so many other things it seems to have it's own time line, one that I don't have much control over.

I'm slowly rebuilding this life of mine. Rearranged some stuff in the living room and cleaned an area that I had not gotten to for over two years. It was a pretty big project of cutting back my Hoya plant, which is a tropical plant that is a climbing vine and had gotten quite overgrown the last few years. The cutting my dad gave me long ago comes from a plant that originally belonged to my great grandmother - thus this Hoya is a family heirloom. It has gorgeous, big white flower bundles that have an intoxicating smell. One flower head will perfume my entire house, but only at night! A sweet, sticky nectar will drip from the tip of each segment of the flowers bundle (see picture). I believe it's probably evolved to be pollinated by bats. As fascinating as this is it can be one messy plant over time as the syrup drips onto the walls and furniture and then dust and crud will stick to that and ... ugh. So, cutting this plant back exposed the wall it's been climbing up for so long, which exposed the blackened old sticky spots. Cleaning the wall didn't work, I had to repaint the entire wall! It looks so much brighter and feels so much cleaner in this space now.

I laugh at myself because this half days project of cutting back the climbing vine of the Hoya, rearranging the furniture, cleaning, vacuuming and repainting this corner started out as my heading to my desk to try to organize and file stuff away ... which is in another room entirely.

The desk project still hasn't been attempted.

And this is how I function these days! A bit ADD really, heading for one project and getting so engrossed in something entirely different. There are still many, many projects that need to be tackled in this house and I still find myself running out of steam too easily. Still find myself hitting a road block composed of stuff. Some of this stuff, being Jim's, will hit me in the solar plexus and I have to walk away. Another day perhaps .... but WHEN will that day come? Seriously? When will I find the energy, the focus, the old me that could tackle big projects and complete them?

I know my Hoya will grow back the vines I cut down, that it will burst into blooms again at some point. All the new growth won't change the plant, but it will be different all the same. It's growth has it's own time line and not in my control.

I guess I see similarities in my Hoya and myself. I too got a haircut. I too weep - but only at night. The "old me" has also been cut down. The changes I am going through, so painful at times, is my new growth that also has it's own time line that I need just unfold into and not control.

I must trust that I too will bloom again.

Loving you all back,

Mary