The Secret Power of Despair

Most of my life, I lived on the 5^th floor of an unattractive apartment building on the outskirts of Belgrade.  My mom was a plant fanatic and we had greenery growing in every corner of our tiny apartment, crowding the balcony and climbing the walls on both sides of our front door.

I neither inherited nor shared my mom’s enthusiasm for horticulture.

On rare occasions when she left her precious plants into my care, they suffered greatly. Seeing their wilted dying state, she would invariably ask me the same question,

Don’t you have any soul???

I never understood how watering soulless vegetation had anything to do with possessing a soul.

When we got married, I moved from the 5^th floor of aforementioned apartment building into a 4 bedroom house with a front and a back yard.  It took us less than a year to kill just about everything green that grew in our yard without even trying.  

The concepts like ‘lawn’, ‘mowing’ and ‘irrigation’ were completely foreign to me.  In fact, they were so foreign that I didn’t even notice the slow and steady demise of our once well-manicured green property, compliments of the previous owner.   That is, I didn’t notice it until our next door neighbor Bob, who shared the same fanatic gene with my mom, started dropping hints. 

Helpful suggestions. 

Discount coupons on blow-out specials in our local home and garden center.

They all fell on death ears.

Over time, the hints and suggestions deteriorated into silent treatment (apparently I was deaf already, so why bother saying anything at all) dirty looks and formal HOA complaints about our crappy yard (his words!).

That got my attention.

OMG, our neighbor must HATE us!

This was so contrary to my Christian beliefs and it broke my heart. I knew it wasn't Bob's fault. We were the ones who were not good neighbors.... 

...But over a stupid grass??? I tried to rationalize. 

Irrational as it seemed to me, we've become those neighbors with a trashy yard everyone dreads to have.

There are no words to describe the depths of despair I felt. 

You see, this wasn't a matter of trying harder. I'd already tried as hard as I could.

This was a matter of identity. I knew who I was.  I was a city girl who grew up on cement and asphalt, loving it! I was the hater of all things creeping and crawling. I was a serial killer of all things green.

I was a writer, for God's sake, not a gardener!

We were doomed. 

There was only one thing left.  One lone last-ditch thing I could do and I did it from the rock-bottom of my heart.