Grooming

When you live the life of a single person who's friends are basically all via the internet or text message, the weekends become a test.
Sure, it's kinda nice to do whatever you want whenever you want, but how many hours of cleaning and masturbating can one person log before they need something to do??
This leads many weekends to be filled with menial tasks, made up deadlines, to do lists that mean nothing if they don't get done. Often, this list includes many of those solitary single behaviors like bleaching, tweezing, shaving, tanning, hydrating, exfoliating, primping and preening that I'd somehow fit into a life if I had one, but as it turns out, for years now I've been able to dedicate just about every other Saturday or Sunday or both to these ritualistic recognitions of my body as a temple and pouring hours of effort into changing it's appearance.

This morning was filled with a pile of boredom accompanied with a dose of apathy, but I did make an appointment to get my hair chopped off, so suddenly, with a time pressure, I've found 47 things to do besides just go. As I'm adding nutrients to the water I'm feeding my plants, I realize that I've accumulated quite a pile of the trimmings I've pulled from my little darlings all crammed in front of the windows. Between the ends that were munched by the cat, the leaves that fell on their own, the fronds at the bottom that have fallen dead as the tops reach ever higher, I thought for a second at how I've been trying to shed my dead weight, and how unsuccessful I've been so far. As I tugged on a dying branch not quite ready to be detached from the main bush, as I saw every bit of that root bundle dead with one tiny green sprout coming from the middle of it all, I saw how similar my growth is.
One of my favorites was a vining sprawling expanse in a beautiful cobalt blue pot that literally had to be wrapped around my entire backseat on the way out here. It didn't fare the trip well, and was down to 3 leaves on it's meager 2 stems by Christmas. It is nothing like it was, but I didn't give up on it - if it wanted to be 3 leaves instead of 300, so be it. Today I see 3 new unraveling leaves that weren't there last Sunday, it's up to 17 fully sprouted (though fairly small) bright green and facing the sunshine petals of life. As I look at the sad buds that prove where the greatness once came from this pot, I see how this evolution was needed to create this new and different but still wonderful version of this fantastically metaphorical centerpiece.

Lets hope this spring treats me as well as these little lovelies show me it can - I'm bored of hibernating, I'm ready to shed the dead weight, and if I find someone who can see past remnants of what I used to be appreciate my fresh and tender new growth for what it is and what it will become, I hope they are close enough to also take me to lunch after an afternoon of grooming.