The Garden Is Always Greener

This is the view from my picnic table this week. Look up and you are looking into the blossom filled, galaxy like interior of the massive magnolia tree that resides in my back yard.   I love this tree and I am going to miss it… maybe… if all goes as planned.

We are contemplating moving from our home. It is a big deal. We have lived here for 12 years and as little as 2 months ago I would have sworn to you that we would be spending 12×12 more years here. We love our little house and our very big magnolia tree. But then the house of our dreams went up for sale, we qualify for a VA loan and all of that changed.

There is alot that goes into the decision to move. But for a gardener, the decision is even harder. This past winter, I came across a roll of film rolling around in one of the ubiquitous junk drawers that all homes have. I had it developed just to see what was on it. The roll was images captured from our backyard  from the first year we lived in our current home. Our dog, who now limps and sleeps nearly continuously, was a brand new puppy. My 17 year-old was a sparkling kindergartener and my budding tweenager was still an infant.   And my garden had not yet taken shape.

I was shocked at how bare the backyard looked back then. We forget how much things change. The backyard simply looked jumbled then, like a frightening section of overgrown land plopped into the middle of a normally neat suburbia. No flowers, a vague vegetable garden (hastily installed the month we moved in), no pond and just a big old jungle of weeds.

I have spent 12 years transforming that overgrown wasteland into MY yard and now I am just going to walk away from it? Just like that? It’s like walking away from a happy marriage or a great job. You don’t do that, do you? Not for something as vague as the promise of “something even better”. But that is exactly what I am contemplating.

But I suppose that is what makes us human. The idea that the grass is always greener, the house is always better and the garden will be near perfect just over that next fence/street/hill. We might have it good, but no matter how great it is, it can be even better.

But nothing has been finalized yet. Maybe this time next year I will be wistfully peering at pictures of a large magnolia tree that belongs to someone else outside a little home that I know is way better than what I have. Or maybe I will be right where everything is perfect.