Every morning since the buds appeared, I’d check with anticipation to see how they were doing and offer words of encouragement.

Yes. I talk to my plants.

Yes. I think they can hear me.

Yes. I think it helps them grow.

And this week they finally bloomed. Gorgeous pink feathers billowing in undulating folds.

I got five blooms this year, as opposed to the two last summer. And I’m so happy to be experiencing them live, rather than from across the country through a computer screen. Such a beautiful flower, the peony.

I think one of the reasons I love it so, is because it blooms with seemingly never-ending layers of petals. They’re so full. Just when you think the flower can’t any bigger, it does.

I almost didn’t plant them, you know. I didn’t know if I could to commit to them. Yes, you see, there is a commitment involved if you want to hop into the garden bed with peonies. They’re a perennial flower. Meaning, once you plant them, they will come back year after year, getting bigger and bigger with each growing season. As opposed to annuals which complete their lifecycle in just one growing season–as in, you plant it, it grows, then flowers, then seeds, and then dies, all in the same year. But the peony, you cut back at the end of the growing season, and the following year it grows in fuller than the year before.

But I just didn’t know if I could plant them, knowing that someday I would have to leave them when Frit or I gets married.

Ultimately however, I determined that I did indeed want peonies. And once I decide I want something, I have to have it. Right now. All the patience I possess (and let’s just say, it is not a lot to begin with) is currently occupied/focused/allotted on waiting for a husband. So in every other area of my life, I am a toe-tapping, don’t want to wait, help me now, what is taking so long, let’s do it now, this line is too long, you’re killing me make a freaking decision already, impatient woman.

And so once I decided that I wanted peonies, I also knew that I didn’t want to wait for the day I had a permanent home. Because who knows if, or when, that will even happen. So I planted them. Even knowing that someday I’ll have to leave them.

But I realized … if and when that day comes, well, I’ll just plant some more.

And isn’t that what we all do, anyway? Journey from one spot to the next, planting our lives, putting down roots, blooming for the benefit of those around us, until we have to move on to the next step of our lives.

That’s all life is really–a cycle of planting, and growing, and blooming, and seeding, and dying, and then doing it all again the following season.

And so I say: Cheers to this season!