Grow Where You Are Planted

Maji Avance
Apr 18, 2021
4 min read

Spring has sprung!

I know my neighbors must think I’m “that neighbor.” Everyone around me is busy landscaping their yards. Cutting down trees and shrubbery, adding fresh annuals and new mulch. And that's great, but I’m so excited to get to know all of the plant life around me that I’m not ready to do that kind of yard work yet.

Hear me out… Imagine that all of a sudden, seemingly overnight, the same shrub that you thought needed to be unearthed and turned into compost burst into an array of vibrant flowers and colors and fragrances!

How can I trim that? I know this happens every year, but I’ve never been here before!

My neighbors have all seen this 20 times. I haven’t seen it once! I’m tryna see what will grow next!

I feel like the only right answer is to go through a whole season of growth and make an informed decision about lawn care next cycle. Right? I mean, who doesn’t like an informed decision, am I right?

And also OMG! Look at how different things are compared to one year ago!

One rotation. One cycle.

I’ve been thinking a lot about growth and the cycle of things.

Ok, let me backtrack a bit.

2020 forced many of us to reevaluate things; get our affairs in order, if you will. She swept in like a storm, ripping the roof off of everything around us. Leaving all of our houses exposed, from the attics to the junk drawers to the dark, dank and dusty basements. You know, those places where we hide all of the stuff we don’t want to deal with. The things we don’t want to process, find a home for, or let go of altogether.

As I was ordering said affairs, I took stock of how many expired, outdated, overdue contracts I had shoved away, ignored, and turned a blind eye to.

I believe in as above so below. The way you do one thing is the way you do all things.

I could no longer pretend not to see the incongruence anymore.

This was having an energetic impact on my life in more ways than one.

Imagine finding out you’re bleeding money simply because you’re maintaining old contract terms. Or that there is an unequal distribution of work baked into your contract, and you’re just going along with it, unnecessarily exhausting yourself rather than make space for difficult conversations.

So, there I was, in 2020, Pandora’s box of existence; wide open, exposed.

There was no other option; it was time to shine a light on the dark and hidden areas of my life and really clean things up.

If you’ve ever negotiated a raise or worked with a creditor to make payment arrangements or negotiate a payoff amount, things felt a lot like that.

There were a lot of difficult conversations.

A lot of

I even threw around a few “apologies for my delay.”

It was overwhelming at first, especially to realize that most of the clean-up was from messes made by me constantly pushing things to the back burner or habitually sweeping things under the rug. It was time to look at my trajectory and get back on course.

Each time I was able to tear up a contract, burn it, and let it go, the work got easier.

Until I got around to one of my longest-standing contracts.

It was drafted in the early 90s!

Now I’ve had the same cell phone number since high school, so I’m not one to shy away from a long-term commitment, but this thing was SO OUTDATED! I’m talking prehistoric, caveman contract with languaging and requirements that no longer spoke to the current time, like decrepit.

This was a long, well-established relationship. This contract was with someone who’d been in my life now for so long that things moved like a well-oiled machine.

It was one of those “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and “if it is broke, just fix it” situationships.

I mean, it was a legit partnership, but it just never seemed to truly FIT me (and by “fit,” I specifically mean beneFIT.) But it worked for its overall intention, so I just adapted to keep the day-to-day business things moving.

But now, here it is, directly under the light, staring me in the face, next in line for renegotiations, and guess what!?

….it did NOT go well.

Full transparency, I’m not going to feign shock. I’d made 1000s of other attempts to renegotiate this contract, over the years, that didn’t go well. In the past, I’d accept a small shift, a concession, in lieu of having the major issues addressed.

This time was different.

This time was being energized by a force that was beyond my control. This time, had no choice other than to be different.

They say, “If you want something different, you have to do something different.”

This time, I did something different. Rather than go back to the status quo, the same thing I’d done 1000 other times, this time, I changed.

This time, I terminated the contract.

I let it all go.

Now I know I just said, "I changed" but in truth, everything changed.

By the close of the year, December 2020, I was signed to a new 30-year contract; this time for my new house. I'm starting a whole new cycle in a whole new city. Whole and new.

Here I am, out exploring my own backyard.