How Digging Holes Helped My Marriage

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I get a little obsessed with plants. I think it is my nurturing personality, I want to save every plant in my yard and nurse it back to life.

Michael and I are scaling back our landscaping. Actually it was never really landscaping but a mishmosh of plants I had stuck in the ground here and there.

My “let’s wing it” approach just hasn’t worked out so well. I just dive in and start digging, similar to how I write, actually. I just have to start with a word or a sentence. Any sentence.

It could be one about cooking eggs and bacon or about how every pair of shoes I own now seems too small. Did my feet really grow after turning 30? But just getting started gets me started. You get the point.

Anyway…

I dig a hole. I plant a plant. I just get it done. I get it in the ground. I have ideas, lots of them. They just keep coming. It is getting the ideas planned out that is the struggle.

This is where Michael comes in. He takes the idea and, like a sculpter, makes something out of it. Both are important, but one needs the other. The idea needs the plan, the plan needs the idea.

Michael and I sat down together and made a plan. We took the ideas and drew pictures. We saw what it looked like on paper and then put the plans into action.

I learned a couple things from doing this together:

1. Having a plan and seeing it through is much more satisfying than no plan and scattered ideas. A scattered idea is just like a random tree, it does’t really make sense. But when you take the ideas and create an action plan, you can create a beautiful landscape.

2. Our weaknesses can be complimented by others’ strengths, if we let them. I can choose to let someone else help me in my weaker areas, but I have to ask for and allow someone to help me. This often takes courage.

We planted a flowering pear tree and a red honeysuckle vine. They are beautiful in their location. The plan was a success.

Question: Who helps you bring your ideas to life?