Without what do you feel incomplete?

Lina Jan

Mental Health wellbeing coach, trainer and writer

Today at 10:03

Without what do you feel incomplete?

I MUST grow something every year, every season.

Without it, I feel incomplete.

Quite literally. As if something’s inside me missing.

As if there’s a hollow space.

I spent many years of my life living in flats with narrow windowsills and no balconies.

I always had flowers and green, leafy houseplants.

I probably would’ve suffocated without them.

But I always longed to grow food.

Tomatoes.

Cucumbers.

Potatoes.

Radishes.

Dill.

Anything and everything that grows in this climate zone.

During those seasons when I couldn’t grow anything, I would make sure my hiking routes would take me past allotments to try and smell a tomato plant or get a glimpse of the overground greens of carrots.

Just so I can witness the magic of something from seemingly nothing, even if from afar.

From day one of moving into a house with a garden, I couldn’t even wait for the sowing season to fill all my windowsills with margarine tubs with holes punched in the bottom and stuck as many different seeds as possible.

And I watched them.

Watched those first shoots tenderly push off those heavy grains of soil so they could reach into the sun.

Watched the first leaves form.

Cheered the second leaves took shape.

Carefully separated into their individual pots in which they were destined to spend the rest of the season when the weather got warmer.

I cherished every moment of their life cycle.

Even if the harvest is small, even if the slugs or birds have most of it before I get to enjoy the fruits of my labour or even before they get to grow into their potential.

Even if things don’t turn out how I would love it to turn out.

Because the final fruit is the bonus, NOT the point.

Now, I absolutely cannot imagine not growing something.

I simply MUST take time to plant some seeds, whatever it costs me. Because the cost of not doing so is too high for me.