Tuesday, March 29, 2022

After many stops and starts, the day finally arrived. Upon waking up it felt odd yet familiar.

My first day due back in the office after two years. I slipped back into the morning routine like it had never left. Walked the dog, tapped the power button on the coffee machine, showered, dressed (the pains of no more sweatpants!), brushed the teeth (boo hygiene) grabbed the laptop bag, kissed my wife goodbye and drove off, podcast playing before I exited our street.

My initial thoughts while driving were centered around, “I wonder what my cubicle looks like. How had I left it back in 2020?” After that wore off, I looked back longingly on the past two years spent working from home. I was going to miss seeing my wife in between conference calls, bumping elbows in the kitchen as we prepared our lunches. I was going to miss Mia, our 6 year-old mutt traveling room to room, in search of a sliver of sun or a vent pumping out hot air.

A brief thought on how the cost of gas was going to bankrupt me.

A brief thought on how combing the hair was vastly overrated.

A brief thought on how I wish I’d captured my feelings in words the entirety of those two strange, awful and beautiful years. A drive through high school graduation. Sending my son off to college.

The end of Travel softball.

Seeing my daughter off to high school. The joys of curbside pickup, the agony of a Christmas spent on Zoom, and endless walks with my wife, exploring the Delaware Canal with reckless abandon.

And since this is technically a garden blog, a brief regret that I hadn’t done more in the garden when I had nothing but time.

Free time is a funny thing. A blessing I guess, but for me, a true curse. I don’t operate well when I have abundant available time. I need pressure to get things done. Ask my parents about all-nighters spent studying in high school. Ask my boss how I handle chaos but don’t ask her if I could’ve addressed things sooner. And ask my family (actually please don’t) about the number of times I utter “Definitely on my list for tomorrow.”

The garden is no different. Give me only one hour on Saturday and I’ll kick some ass. Tell me I’ve got the entire afternoon and I’m paralyzed by all that I could get done.

I did some things outside the past two years, sure, but I also procrastinated like a champ. “If I don’t get to it today, there’s always tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that. What else do I have to do with the world shut down?”

Which brings me back to the theme I’ve shared in my prior two posts. Time to embrace a little at a time. Life is busier again and that, fingers crossed, means John The Gardener will return. I like to think he’ll make some serious headway this spring if he can stick to this mantra. Which will give us all more of this:

If the blank slate I’ve created doesn’t send me into the fetal position first …