weeds

I just spent close to 2 hours weeding the yard. Except that after all that time and effort I spent, there was really no aesthetic benefit to be had. You see, the weeds had grown up on the back side of the berms that run the perimeter of our...er..my backyard.

I saw the tops of a few of them a couple days ago. They were nothing major, nothing that would immediately be spotted, nothing that detracted a whole lot from the rest of the yard. But they needed to be pulled.

When I got out there today and actually climbed onto the berm, well, that was a shocker. The backside of the slope was carpeted in weeds...thorny, pokey, puffy, cottony weeds. So I pulled and picked and said a few choice words along the way. They needed to come out----they'd grown far more than I'd realized.

I see a clear parallel here between the weeds on my berm and the goings on in my marriage. I was only seeing the tips of the weeds growing in my relationship. Things looked fairly good most of the time. I knew there were some issues that were ongoing. I thought we were doing okay pulling some of those figurative weeds by going to counseling. Thing is, counseling only works if you apply it....similar to the weed killer sitting in the garage; it's not doing it's job sitting on the shelf, is it?

I was sipping some mint tea---with a sprig of fresh mint from the garden---while sitting on the patio after my hard work. And although my hard work didn't make a huge difference from where I was sitting, the psychological difference was immense. I knew the weeds were gone. I knew the back of the slope was clear. I'm now aware that I need to check weekly instead of waiting 2 months now. I'll catch the weeds when they're small and haven't crept under the fence into the neighbor's yard.

There's a bigger lesson in here for me, I think.
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