Bloom Where You are Planted

It is three o'clock.  I have no piano lessons to teach this afternoon.  The children have some of their school work done for the day.  I have dinner all ready to go in the oven.  Georgie is going down for his happy nappy.  My people are wasting a full skein of yarn turning the trampoline into a giant spiderweb.

I usually blog at foolishly late hours of the night, when I ought to be sleeping, but I'm going to give myself a treat and write at 3 o'clock in the afternoon.  Will writing at this hour help me think more or less clearly?  Not sure.  I'd really like to go down and read A Tale of Two Cities,  but the very nanosecond I sit down to read, at least four kiddos will simultaneously need my attention for something. I don't know why they don't want my attention while I'm on the computer.  I won't question.

For a while now I've been thinking about the saying, "Bloom Where You are Planted".  My mother was very much into country/crafty things and when I was about 10 she gave me a t-shirt that had a girl with a flower garden and that saying printed along the bottom.  Think Mary Englebreit.

I never understood this saying.

For starters, we are people-- not trees or flowers.  But more importantly, we have choice in our lives.  If we don't like where we are we should do something about it.  Go plant yourself some place else!  Don't just stay where you are-- go and become what it is you want to become.  Go be where you want to be. 

I thought this was a dumb saying to make lazy people feel better. 

I am sure I am a little wiser now.

As children of our Heavenly Father here on earth we do have a tremendous amount of choice about what we want to do with our lives.  Especially living in the country that we do.  For the most part, you can choose what kind of education you want, what, if any church to go to, your entertainment, what kind of food to eat, what kind of work to do, where you want to live, whether or not to exercise, how big your family will be.  If you don't like how you look you can have plastic surgery to change your face, you can dye your hair.  In so many ways, you can choose who you will be. 

But not entirely.

Not everyone has equal options open to them at all times.  Some people are very poor monetarily and don't have many educational opportunities.  Some are in poverty of the soul and don't know who they are and where they came from.  Some people are lonely and haven't found a partner to go through life with.  Some might have multiple babies when they only wanted one.  Some would love nothing more than to be healthy enough to be able to exercise.  Some have good education, but are unable to provide for their families.

Choices in the past very much determine what kind of choices are available now.  I obviously no longer have the choice to be a single, unattached career-gal.  I chose to have children and now it is my job to raise and nurture them.  I can't undo that choice.  I could neglect that responsibility, but at what cost?

"Bloom where you are planted" means something much more to a 33 year old mother of seven than it did to a freshman at BYU in 1995.  It means to ENJOY where I am now and to embrace my work.  It means to bloom and be happy despite the occasional less than ideal growing conditions.  I am now connected and bonded in such a way that my life really is not just mine anymore.  I cannot just pick up and leave and go change to a different life.  Well, I could, but I don't want to and it would seriously hurt a lot of people.  My life is so tied to the lives of my family that I am actually quite rooted to where I am. 

I suppose I am like a tree or a flower after all.