These two beauties have been with us for 17 years now. My sister gave them to us as a house warming present. Along with two garden gnomes!!! My partner loved the plants but she hated with a passion the idea of garden gnomes. To save them I had to hide the two chaps under the hedge. I was supposed to have taken the sledgehammer to them. As the hedge grew the gnomes got increasingly buried within the branches. Now they are completely lost. Must have an expedition to find them one day.

The two plants have been stars. All those years ago I dumped them in two large plant pots and that’s it. Never touched them again and every year they deliver. It’s really poignant that they are still here and yet my partner….

I remember having a long chat with my partner all those years ago. Sat outside with a bottle of wine looking at these two small plants. Do we plant them or put them in containers. If we put them in containers we can bring them with us when we move. Our small bungalow was not going to be big enough for the family we were about to hopefully start. Stay here until the second was on its way and then move. However even back then my partner was always reading the property pages to find that dream family house.

17 years later I am again outside looking at the two plants. How times change. The wine is replaced with a herbal tea. A large part of the lawn has disappeared under a trampoline. The hedge is much bigger. The same two chairs we sat on 17 years ago are much more weather beaten now. The garden which was filled with conversation and laughter back then now feels a very lonely place this afternoon.

Soon the school bus will be heard and family life with recommence. The rest of the day will hopefully be filled with questions, dreams and smiles. It’s family life but certainly not the one we dreamt of 17 years ago.

67 thoughts on “17 years”

  1. Letting go of the future we dreamed can be the hardest part. I love the color of these flowers — I hope their brightness can remind you of the joyous times you had with your partner.

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  2. You are so right when you say you are living a life you did not expect to live or were prepared for. You were thrown a curve ball and have had to adjust to it. You are doing a great job and are such a good dad to your son. Your partner would be proud of you!

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  7. Good morning !!!

    All of us experience change in our lives. Change is the one constant in our lives. There are changes that we look forward to and change that we fear. However, one thing is for sure. Things will not stay the same no matter how much we would like them to. When a life change occurs, we have two choices in how to respond. We can despair that a change has come and assume that things will be worse, or we can look with excitement at the new possibilities for personal growth and change in self that the change presents.

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  8. For many reasons this is such a poignant post for me right now. The better sweet of the memories versus the time passed and people absent. Beautifully written and expressed.

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      1. Two weeks ago I heard my first love and friend of 30 years had been given a cancer diagnoses and I was at his flat at the weekend helping as he now needs constant care. While I was dusting I realised every single item he owned had a memory for me. Looking through his photos, there we were year on year. Knowing things will never be the same is hard, knowing the tiny glimmer of sameness that remains is about to stop shining is hard, but it is life’s temporary nature that makes every moment so precious. It is the looking around and realising suddenly time has passed but the memory of moments shared is still so vivid that hit a note with me.

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  12. Pingback: 321 Quote Me— Expression – Keep it alive

  16. Some days I look at rocks or metal pieces and think how they will still be there, long after I’m gone…

    The flowers are definitely prettier. 🙂

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      1. Oh clubs are super expensive here, too. My nephew’s attending summer camp at the YMCA where he lives, and it’s, like, 200 bucks a week! That sounds impossible to me, but then, typical daycare costs aren’t that much different (another reason I could never afford daycare).
        Thankfully the school district sponsors free half-day summer school–they have remedial classes for those who need academic help, transition classes for kids like Biff and Bash (getting ready for 1st grade, things like that) and then fun specialty classes. Blondie’s doing a bunch of those, like nature art and drawing. The only class I’m paying for this summer is swimming lessons for Bash, which thankfully isn’t too expensive because it’s the night session.

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      2. Education basically shuts down for the holidays. The only free options we get is our health service does an activities work shop for kids with anxieties every few months on one afternoon for 2 hours. Round here ours tend to be based in sports centres and are football and cricket based – costs about £20 for a morning. I remember one parent saying she couldn’t understand why more kids didn’t get put into them as they are so cheap. Sadly for many £20 for a morning or 200 bucks for the week is a lot of money. It must be a nightmare for you to navigate this and still find time for work.

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      3. Ugh, the past summers were a horror.
        I have a little more hope this summer, as the three of them have good stretches of independent play. But with my new job potentially calling me in during June, I never really know what I’ll get done on any given day.
        Still.
        We keep on keeping on xxxxxx

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  19. We used to have really lovely roses growing back when… well when we thought life would always be the same. And then, life changed one day and …. those roses never really came back. They were my husband’s roses and till today, he’s trying to grow them, especially the orange one. It’s his way of trying to touch that life we once had.

    A year ago, I found a deep pink variety that reminded me of one happy childhood day, and we managed to get them to grow. When she blooms, it’s a happy sight.

    Recently, I’ve been yearning to go rose hunting by myself, yknow pick out a pot by myself and try my hand at raising her.

    It’s about the roses, but it’s also about hope, wanting a new sort of life within old parameters that may never change.

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