Leftover Gifts
Patterns from childhood started out as gifts.
Feeling that is different than knowing it.
It started mid-January this winter—me wanting cut flowers so I could be in the proximity of new life and color. I know it’s weird to find new life in something that’s terribly close to dying, being cut short of life and all. I guess some things will just never make sense.
Most years I hold off on a flower purchase until March or April so that a single purchase can get me to winter’s finish line. Until then, just the idea of cut flowers is usually enough.
One trick for stalling the purchase is to cut budding branches in the yard and bring them indoors. I did this back in January. The branches were still going strong two weeks later, but March or April seemed far away and it sure would have been nice to come across some inexpensive flowers.
The week before Valentine’s Day, I browsed the flower section while grocery shopping. Every bouquet was for Valentine’s Day: red roses or a mix of reds and whites. I didn’t want reds or whites. I wanted summer. No purchase.
The day after Valentine’s Day, I happened to be at the same grocery store again, but I forgot to look for flowers.
The day after the day after Valentine’s Day, I wondered: What happens to all the unsold Valentine's Day flowers? Do they go on sale, was now my moment? Do they get thrown out? At least composted? Do they get separated and repurposed into springtime arrangements?
What to do with anything outdated made me think of the outdated childhood arrangements that we bring with us into adulthood. Many of those holding-back-adult things were once moving-forward-child things that helped us feel loved. That pattern I have to make sure others around me are okay before I check in with myself? In childhood it helped me, a lot.
I know I didn’t have the skills as a child to navigate life differently. But now? Those patterns are no longer useful and can sometimes even be harmful. They’re leftover from a different time. Leftover from their appropriate time.
I understand all this, but the understanding doesn’t necessarily help me. It’s as if it were July and I’m still trying to keep Valentine’s Day flowers alive. But what if those leftover patterns were a gift though like flowers? That feels different. Perhaps I can celebrate the gift, smile, and be grateful I used it.
Curious, I made a deliberate trip to the grocery store that day after the day after Valentine’s Day. Gone. They were all gone. Spring bouquets had replaced them. If only my own leftovers were that quick to be replaced.