Sign in the Sky
It’s now February and I’m up to my eyeballs in farm planning. It’s never ending but it’s definitely crunch time for me. It’s time. Time…to get down to business.
Even though I’ve dreamed about this and that, here and there. It’s time to transition from taking those dreams to making some decisions.
Making decisions sometimes is hard for me. I’m the kind of person that has the irritating case of what they call “analysis paralysis”. It’s not actually that I can’t make a decison. I can make plenty of life decisions easy. But when it comes to what to grow in the garden that’s another story. I don’t want to make the wrong decision. And when you add in a million choices of flowers to decide to grow….UGH I want them all! Since deciding to grow all the flowers in the world isn’t practical. And especially since it doesn’t meet my requirement of keeping things simple. I have to make some tough decisions.
There’s a lot of big britches marketing folks that go on about market analysis, style trends, cost analysis, color trends blah blah blah. But that’s not me. It’s easy to get intimidated with all the hot shots that know what you should be doing with your business. That’s beyond my keeping things simple rule yet again.
Then I got my sign in the sky.
Growing up I was asked just like all the other kids what I wanted to be when I grew up. Well, just to let ya know now….it wasn’t to be a farmer;) My ideas of “what” I wanted to be changed all the time. Remember, I don’t want to make the wrong decison. Plus I was a kid. I didn’t know until I actually grew up and had some life experience. Anyways…
There’s something I remember so vividly growing up and I never shared the idea with anyone. And now that I’ve been grown up a few years I have the perspective to think back on that time and question it. And I realized it was something else at play that’s a perfect question that NO ONE asks kids about for when they grow up. Before I give you that question let me tell you the short story.
When I was a little girl I mostly grew up “in the sticks” of South Georgia. In a little brick house, on an acre of land, on a red dirt road, and surrounded by big business farms and pine trees. There was a little tiny Mom and Pop gas station about three miles down the adjacent (eventually)paved road. I’d ride my bike (complete with a playing card clothes pinned to the frame of the bike at the tire so it would sound cool) to that little store once in a blue moon with a dollar I had saved somehow or my Mom had given me to buy a Whatchamacallit candy bar. There was no air conditioning in that little house. And South Georgia temps get over 100F. The closest I got to an a/c was a box fan in the window. When you hear me say I grew up where the real country songs came from, I aint kidding;)
One of the things I remember wanting so badly was such an odd thing. I’m ok if you find it odd too. I’m just being honest here.
I wanted to be the color Pink.
Seriously. I wanted to be the actual color Pink. I loved pink. I still love pink! It had nothing to do with being born to a couple of hippies or even Barbie in the least. I was of the brand new Cabbage Patch generation. Not a Barbie girl. Being the only child, you learn how to entertain yourself. My idea of playing was in the dirt, making up something to build with the leftover bricks from the house, shooting the clothesline post with the BB gun from the back sliding door as my own form target practice, riding my bike in the dirt roads, playing tackle football with the other country kids etc... Yeah, I was a tough little half pint. And yep, that country bumpkin wanted to be the color Pink.
Now, I know it may not make sense on the surface. But after some thought and perspective of adult life and experience I can tell you it makes total sense to me now.
Now I realize what I actually wanted was to feel how the color Pink made me feel. I wanted to feel peaceful, free, pretty, elegant, playful, creative, feminine, calm, happy…
Make sense?
I’m not saying I never felt those things growing up. Not at all. What I’m saying is that’s how I want(ed) to feel about my life all the time. That’s how I want to feel while I live, everyday.
So while I’ve been scouring the seed catalogs, online shops, and masterclasses I’ve been overwhelmed with options yet again. I don’t want to choose wrong. At the moment of feeling overwhelmed to the max, I was done for the day and about to leave the barn and head home. As I walked outside I was struck with the view in the picture above.
It made me stop, smile, and take it in. So I took that as my sign from above.
I’ll decide to order the things that bring me peace, beauty, calm, happy feelings. And I know they will bring those feelings to you and your family too.
So, along with asking kids what they want to be when they grow up, ask them how they want to feel. That will give great clues as to what they really want to do with their lives.
Now days I can tell you that I’m tickled pink with how I’m living my one and only life.
Tell me in the comments…What did you want to be when you were a kid?
May Peace be with you too,
Neva