It’s raining like crazy and I’ve lost track of how many back-to-back storms we’ve had!

So far we have managed without any major incidents, apart from yesterday when our poor orange tree fell over.

Despite being happy in the same heavy vessel for almost 14 years, it capsized after some seriously intense winds yesterday afternoon. The pot broke into several pieces.

El Hub came home a little early from work to go to the hardware store to pick up another pot, and when I brought up the subject of maybe using the opportunity to plant the tree in the ground, he asked, “Tell me, would you like to dig the hole? Because it will take several hours of digging in the rain to get it deep enough. Um, no thanks, young man!

He and Connor went out to buy another pot and ended up choosing one with a rather gray gradient.

Anyway, earlier that afternoon, shortly after we discovered the tree had fallen, Connor said something that surprised me.

“Why do such bad things always happen to us?”

Hearing her say something like that really surprised me. It felt like a punch in the stomach.

I grew up in a somewhat pessimistic household and negativity colored the way I felt about myself and the world around me as a young person. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I started to see the glass as half full, and that was only after a lot of hard work retraining my brain.

It was a journey, but it was worth it for me. Seeing the world through that half-full lens made my heart lighter and my life in general better, and I tried to pass that on to Connor from a very young age. I hope that teaching her this will allow her to navigate the world with a strength and confidence that I didn’t have until later in life.

I took her aside and explained that the tree falling was not some kind of punishment. It was just an effect of wind and weather. When the wind is strong, sometimes the pot just overturns. Time is just time. It is neither good nor bad. It’s simple is.

I also tried to convey to her that our thoughts and words are very powerful and that when we say things like “Bad things always happen to me” it can reinforce the belief that bad things will happen – and that can be a dangerous thing for a person. I told her that we should do everything we can to protect what our minds think and the words we choose to speak out loud because what we believe becomes our truth.

Was it too deep a conversation with a seven-year-old? I do not know. Still, I hope some of it sinks in.

One thing I find interesting about being a parent is that it can be very triggering at times. It usually happens in situations where I realize what kind of reaction I would have received from my primary caregivers as a child. Sometimes I wish I could go back to my little one and give her the care, guidance and support that Connor gets.

Whoever it is. We’re all like a potted orange tree, I guess. We’re huddled in our pots doing our thing, but sometimes a storm comes and for some reason we capsize. But then our people come and help us find another pot, plant us again and we go on.

We just keep moving forward and keep growing.

Your friendly beauty addict,

Karen