Dried Flowers

Last night I got home at a decent time and jumped right into cleaning up the apartment. I picked out a few "fun" things to do - because I like to design and organize spaces. This included clearing the table to make room for grandma's blue bowl and candle holders, picking up the living room, and organizing the shelves in the bathroom.

I also hung up Mark's cow clock that he got for his birthday - complete with a swinging tongue for a pendulum. It looked so cute over my sink, but I had to throw out the dried flowers that had been hanging there for years. They were from Mark's other grandmother's funeral. They were falling apart. They also were beginning to remind me of death, and having experienced a loss ourselves lately, I was ready to fill the house with freshness and life!

When Mark got home, he was happy to see the cow but not so happy to find the old flowers in the garbage. He picked them from the trash and spread them out on my clean table. I came out of the bathroom and saw them there... and in that moment they became more than just old, crackling, nasty, garbage-stinking flowers. They were a roadblock on the path to home organization.

I lost it.

I just broke down and cried. He got angry, and I refused to budge. The flowers had to go. I was so upset, I started cleaning angrily (not recommended). He eventually asked me to take some photos of them, so I did - and I promise to make it up to him by doing something nice with those pictures. But I can't tell you how relieved I was to get rid of the dried flowers.

It's not that I don't love and respect his things or that I don't care about the sentimental value they hold for him. It was just that, in that one moment, they were keeping me from doing what I need to do - prepare my house for a new life, a new home where we can live comfortably. I need to become the wife I was meant to be, and more than that the adult I'm supposed to be. And eventually, a mom. How can I take care of someone else if I can barely take care of myself?

Maybe all I'm doing is trying to prove to someone that I can be that person.