I haven’t been doing my job. Not all of it. I have parts I’m avoiding. The world has gotten too mean and impatient. I am the admin for our social media sites which is funny because I can’t even do them myself. Not actually do them, well sometimes, but I can’t separate myself from the world when I can view the world at the touch of a screen. I get lost. Guess what? I’m lost. So I know. If I go down that avenue I won’t come back easily. So I avoid. Avoidance isn’t always a negative. It can be an unhealthy way to cope yes. So I’m told. But it can also be a coping tool to avoid. By avoiding. So I don’t have to avoid for the wrong reasons. By avoiding. I’m making this up. Avoidance is exactly what it is. Not facing something hard. I try often to convince myself that it’s healthy. I have convinced myself that by avoiding social media right now is keeping me and everyone else safe. I’ve leaned into this feeling.
But, I’m in real time. Where I belong. Where I wish so many others would be too. When I make a post about plants it takes seconds for it to be seen and commented on. Like a vulture to a carcass. It’s odd. It’s like they are waiting. We have a store cat. He is famous. If he isn’t seen online daily I’ve been private messaged on our page asking if he is dead. I can relate to this question. I usually think if I don’t see someone sometimes they died too. So I post the cat. So he ain’t dead to so many. Except a picture online really doesn’t prove life.
I usually just talk plants. Very few know its even me behind the screen. They think it’s the owner. Which is fun for me. I can hide. It’s a place to share what I love and hide from the world at the same time. By avoiding what’s hard and saying who I am or showing who I am. To avoid.
Right now people are vultures. They are on our store like madman. Waiting for a post so they can comment their griefs over our indifference of the masks. We struggle with this change. We are trying. We work 10-12 hour days in a humid greenhouse talking about plants and watering and unloading while trying to breath. They go up and down. We wear them around our necks sometimes. We drop them in ponds, toilets, the ground, they get ran over by fork lifts and bob cats. We move like most don’t in their industry. We often eat while we water and walk and talk. Some of our masks show we forget we have it on and our food is on it. Is this working? We don’t know. It’s why we try and it’s why we struggle.
I focus on the people in the store. It’s thousands. We are the busiest we have ever been in over 30 years. We can’t find plants. We can’t get things people want. The entire country shut down for weeks. Not all growers kept growing. It’s a rough decision. I can’t go in back and whip up a star colored petunia. I have to explain things to people that should know that plants take weeks to grow. Weeks that some weren’t growing. Thé shut down occurred when growers would have been starting a second round of annuals. That round didn’t start. I am asked daily to explain how plants grow. To adults. They get angry and frustrated. It’s like we are the only thing they have to do right now. And they can’t do it.
Our boss said he wants to try and give us all a day off. It’s been weeks. We would have to close. For a day. People would probably stand outside with banners demanding we open.
I can’t face the criticism from both sides online. It’s the last place I need to be. I’ve come to close to responding in a personal manner and not the professional that I am. I made a response and I copy and paste it to give the same answer of how hard this is for all of us and to just keep calm and garden on. Even though we can’t find the plants.
It’s slowly working. Hundreds of people have found relief in coming to the store. Hundreds of new followers and I have been radio silent for days. I will get back online. When online calms down and people get out and garden and we can get plants. I used to post pictures of staff and our work then it became mean and targeting our staff as individuals. I delete comments and posts. I don’t have this time. I post a picture of a beautiful flower and someone wants to know if we have something unrelated then upset I don’t answer. While I’m standing there with a line of people in real time.
So I’m avoiding but focusing. Leaning into it. Staying in real time so I can stay in real time. So I can not get into political debates and arguments and stand up for what I believe in on a platform that is specifically ran by me to be the opposite. I have had to lay out boundaries before. Those people never came back. Some did. With a more positive approach. It’s a happy place. A social platform for my gardener friends. Not a place to relieve griefs. There are places to do that. Personal pages. I think people should express their opinions and really support freedom of speech just not when it’s meant to harm. I have a place I lay out for them to do this. I do want to hear and know the grief. So I can fix their grief and not mine. People are looking for outlets and I get that. So I just don’t make mine available right now.
I guess that was my grief. It has been burdening me. I miss telling stories of plants. I want to write a story about damage plants receive from the cold. They get cold and they will be fine. I need to explain it but I’m just not ready yet. The store. At was mia for a day. I noticed he hadn’t eaten em yet. This is concerning. He can hear his bowl being filled a building away. I feared his death. I am sure many do since he hasn’t been online for days. I found him accidentally locked in a warehouse he never goes into. He doesn’t like people so he avoids them. I knew right where to look. He was where I go. He didn’t die.
It took me too long to pay bills this morning. Over an hour. Three bills. That’s all I have to pay. The process just took longer than it should have. My keypad was missing on one app. The other didn’t accept the password then when I changed it it said I couldn’t use one I already made but the app didn’t recognize as the one it was. The last took me over 6 tries to prove I wasn’t a robot. The stoplight robot question throws me off. How many squares with stoplights? I click them even if it has a little piece of the pole. I don’t think I’m supposed to. Clearly I am a robot.
The other day I was told to smoke pot. That sometimes I just need to shut down. I never have. I’m not convinced I ever will. I don’t think I would shut down or even could. I also fear I would die. That I would somehow have the worst experience ever. Laced pot, bad pot, allergic reaction…certain death. Do I bother other people that much that they think I should always just be drugged? Do they think I’m too hard for even me to handle? I am hard for me to handle. I do wish I could feel relief. But the uncertainty is fear. Fear is uncertain. Is it even about me? They can’t handle themselves and that is their relief? What’s mine? I don’t have relief. I don’t recognize calm. I tell others to keep calm and garden on and can’t even do it myself. I want everyone else to.
I am controlling in a way that is difficult. I don’t personally want to control others I want them all to do it themselves. I want mass control. So I avoid others. Then I don’t have to worry about them. Part of my role is to manage others. Not just plants. I also have people I manage who help me manage plants. It’s a delicate balance I am new at. I like things a certain way. Perfect straight rows and tags in all the same and down the same. I like things the way that I like them. I also like to be the one to do them. But I have others who do them for me now. I just watch plants grow now not always get to get my hands dirty. I enjoy the time to be able to pop flowers off and scout for bugs and actually look at the plants. But I struggle to look past that I didn’t lay them out and they are not exactly how I would have. But I can’t do everything. Or make others. I have to settle and I have.
I have learned to let go. Or am learning. All of it. The avoidance is letting go a little. It’s still avoidance but it’s letting go and focusing too. I want control but really want it of myself more than others. I will lose control of myself if I shut it down for a little. I do want sleep and relief but I want to earn it myself not cover it up. I centered the control of others I crave onto me and now don’t want to lose it.
I am very lost and could easily fall back to old habits. I may even creat new ones. My therapist told me now isn’t the time to creat new coping skills. To fall back on ones I know. Then lean into them. She likes to use this phrase right now. Its our theme. Lean into the feeling. If I have to separate I am leaning into it. To avoid. So I don’t accidentally lean into the wrong place.
Aspenleaf 