Garden Opinion

So i'm trying to catch you all up on my opinion pieces from the past year. Here's one I wrote about my garden:

I can still remember my first garden.
It started out with my 8-year-old eyes looking with wonder at the flower arrangement my dad got for my mom on their anniversary, an Edenic arrangement of two dozen roses and baby’s breath. I wanted to grow flowers like that so I could arrange two dozen roses for my mom (At that point, I had no conception of what skill and time was required for such a feat.) It was for mom, so there wouldn’t be any problems.
All I knew was that my mom enjoyed two dozen roses more than she enjoyed two dozen toys strewn across the playroom.
We had just finished pouring a cement retaining wall for our vegetable garden, which would conveniently be absolutely perfect for my flower garden. My mom said I could plant a few flowers on the right side of our fancy cement garden if I’d like.
But I don’t think she understood.
I wanted to be a true artist with my flowers, and true artists should get to use the whole garden. I was an ant who wanted the entire Amazon jungle to himself.
After a careful evaluation of my situation, I decided that I had to start somewhere, and that somewhere might have to be the back-right corner of our vegetable garden.
My family took an outing to Sierra Gardening and Nursery to pick out what would go into our garden. We picked up our rusted wagon that couldn’t quite roll in a straight line and set out to populate our garden.
Tomatoes, those would be excellent for our garden.
Hmmm, cucumbers would be delicious (When are we going to the flower section, mom?) We’ll go in a minute. Don’t worry.
We finally got there, the fabulous flower section. What should I get? What would look good? (I want to put roses in the garden, mom.) But roses would require intensive care and time, as would the rest of my flowers.
I finally settled on some zinnias and chrysanthemums. I didn’t know what they were or what it would take to culture their growth, but I wasn’t concerned – it was for mom, so there wouldn’t be any problems.
As we were checking out, we saw packages of Morning Glory seeds near the register. Those would be perfect to finish off my (well, my family’s) garden; a wall of vines and flowers to provide a backdrop to my “Secret Garden” – I suggested putting a bench with a secret compartment in the seat, too, but that didn’t sound like a very good idea to my parents, so Morning Glories would have to do.
We all piled in our Honda minivan and drove home to plant the veggies and, more importantly, the flowers.
I set to work with enthusiasm and gusto, my little hands covered with oversized gardening gloves, my little fingers squishing the moist dirt to make a hole for the precious flowers, my little face breaking a miniature sweat.
But I wasn’t prepared at all for what was required to plant my flowers. I was a 100-meter sprinter setting out for a 50-mile marathon. I sprinted with all my might…for about 15 minutes.
Then the heat of the day, the overwhelming task before me, and the time required all set in the pit of my stomach, like that feeling I get now when I lose my keys or my wallet.
I planted my few flowers, even helped out a bit with the planting of the tomatoes and cucumbers and simply ran out of steam.
My mom took me inside and gave me a glass of ice-cold milk. It tasted so good.
Maybe just the back-right corner of the garden would be OK.
So nowadays when I get enthused on a certain subject, I go back to wanting the whole garden – anything less would only limit me, right?
But what I always discover is that while a feeling of limitation can annoyingly nibble at my heels, an overwhelming blank canvas swallows me whole. I end up exhausted and frustrated at my inability to fill it up with my limited supply of creative juice.
I inevitably find myself watching pitifully as my “get up and go” gets up and goes.
I’ve learned it’s OK to settle for the back-right corner of your dream, because sometimes anything more is just distracting white noise.