I had prepared myself for the the emotions that were going to come with it. You see, J's husband is in the Air Force, currently stationed in England, so a lot was about to happen. In just a few short days, I got to see J again, met her husband for the first time, did everything in my power to help take some of the wedding chaos off her shoulders, put up with some of the more...colorful...guests, spent many many hours alone in the car with another of my close friends, and said goodbye to J before she jets off to her new home outside of London with a question mark where her return date goes.
And yet, weirdly, one of the most painful things to happen that week was a picture message from my mom.
About ten years ago, my dad and I built a nearly 200 sq ft flower bed for my mom, and ever since, she (with, okay, minimal help from me) has been turning it into a perennial garden, which means we spend the spring and summer waiting for everything we've already planted to pop up and bloom again.
I wait for the tulips and the lillies. Those are "my" flowers. This year has been a strangely soggy one for us here in Minnesota, and under the average temp too, so the growing season has been delayed. My lillies still had not bloomed. And then a day after I arrived in Montana, they did.
This has been a recurring theme for me, this feeling of missing out, of feeling the world's time slipping out of sync with my plan. It's a disaster. Despite my best efforts, at heart I am still a control freak. Losing my place feels like heartbreak – and getting back on track takes more than just hopping on one foot until the hitch in my ankle cures itself.
I cried about it, I did. Not just about the flowers, but about life and angst and feeling lost. Then I got back on my feet, wiped my face, and moved on – talked to people, put together the wedding, danced the Cupid Shuffle and YMCA. Pretended I was on the right track.
And when I got back home, I found this.
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