Aphids Aren't The Worst

Previous post was an attempt to collect my links in one place and organize them, as part of my Clean Up Your Fucking Internet weekend. It's all part of a plan! So sorry if you clicked and ended up shaking your head in confusion.

Here's a tragedy for you: When I was a teenager, I started a small rose garden. It was in honor of my mother, who loved roses and had planted them all over our former property. After she died, my father remarried and we moved, and none of the rose bushes were dug up and brought with us. To this day, when I go back home, I still drive by our old house and stop to look at her roses. They are incredibly beautiful.

That's not the tragic part. Here it is: There were six rosebushes in varying colors at the new house. When I was eighteen and had graduated from high school, I got sick of my father's totalitarian, despotic ways (hey, I was a teen and pissed off, as eighteen year olds are wont to do). So I did what any dissatisfied, grumpy with the establishment teen does: I put all my shit in two big garbage bags and moved out. I worried about who would take care of the rose bushes, but hey, I had to go.

When my dad and stepmother found out, they were pretty dissatisfied and pissed off, too. My dad took it stone-faced and silently angry.

My dear stepmother mowed down all the rosebushes.

 My sister told me, and she provided updates; basically, that the roses never grew back and that I wasn't welcome at the house anymore.

I still see them in my mind's eyes. Two rows, three bushes each, like a little grave plot.

Okay, so that's a bit much, but you get how I feel about that event.

It's been more than twenty years, and I still get pissed off when I think about it.

Now today, I'm going to have myself a mojito and sit outside and look at the first rose I've planted at our house. It's bright yellow, which I like, and it'll go good with the lavender. I've got a lot of that.

I'm not sure how you heal the past, and I'm more inclined to think it's like a shiny scar. Which is not a bad thing.

Enjoy your day or evening, wherever you are, friends.