thoughts on green grass, daisies and erik

My ever so optimistic friend, Kira, likes to say, “The grass isn’t greenest on the other side of the fence. The grass is greenest on my side.”

She’s one of those people I aspire to be like—always finding the upside in down times. Most recently, when her apartment flooded, instead of complaining, she told me how lucky she was to have her in-laws to stay with. When I asked, “Isn’t it an inconvenience?” she just shrugged and smiled.

I am not at Kira’s level yet. Far from it. I swing both ways on my green-grass philosophy. Some days I believe the grass is green wherever you water it. Other days I find myself hopping fences without meaning to, watering someone else’s yard while complaining about what’s missing in my own.

My grass is like a Dr. Seuss rhyme that never quite rhymes: green grass, brown grass. Good life, blah life. I never quite know what mood I’ll wake up in. It frustrates me, because I know I’ve got it good. Really good. But I can’t always feel the goodness of it.

And all this talk about grass, when the truth is, I don’t have any grass.

Just concrete.

That, and four long garden boxes Erik built for me. Boxes that hold strawberries, chilies, basil, rosemary, lettuce, and a few stubborn extras, including the Gerbera daisies I had to fight for.

(Several months ago at the garden shop)

Me: Oooh. Let’s get these! They’re so pretty!

Erik: Really? But they’re kind of useless. They’ll take up space—we could grow something useful instead.

Me: What? They’re not useless. They make me happy.

(Needless to say, I won that argument.)

Since he takes charge of watering, everything stays green… and pink, and red, and orange too. No grass, but that’s okay.

Because in this time of grays and greens, ups and downs, questions, fears, and the constant low hum of wondering what I’m doing with my life or whether I’ll live up to my potential, whether I still even have potential, I’m learning something.

Even if I end up desolate, dejected, and far less than I hoped to be, I’ll be okay. Because I’ve got family and friends who will love me anyway. Who will tell me I’m good. Who will stay.

And I’ve got Erik.

As weeks turn into months and newness settles into something steadier, as we grow into an “us,” I find myself forgetting what life felt like without him. I’m learning this:

I’ve got a man who builds me a garden with daisies even when he thinks they take up space.

A man who, if I were to pick a daisy in that garden and strip it down to its last petal whispering “he loves me not,” would still love me without hesitation. And if a hundred daisies came to the same conclusion, he would still stand, unwavering.

There is something to be said for someone who is not shy with their feelings, who doesn’t go a day without letting me know I am loved.

And maybe that is the greenest green. The bluest blue. Maybe it’s the color I always wished there was a word for—the one I used to call “Alaska” as a child. Not knowing it was a place, not a color, but imagining it anyway: everything in the world swirled together like an oil slick on pavement, but somehow beautiful.

As time goes on, maybe I am becoming just a little more like Kira.