Why You’ve Got to Stop Watering Dead Plants.

I have been having MAJOR writer’s block for the past month, and I think it’s because I knew what I wanted to say but I just didn’t know how to say it. It’s a weird feeling putting yourself out there for the world to see, because even though we as a generation expose so much on social media we still keep our “real” selves – to ourselves… most of the time. We want people to see the strong, beautiful, sexy, adventurous, outgoing parts of our lives, while we keep all the insecurities, all of the setbacks, all of the dusty cobwebs far from where the eye can see.

I was on Pinterest a couple months ago and a quote scrolled by that stuck with me. It said, “You gotta stop watering dead plants.” It’s a pretty simple little sentence, but for me it hit a nerve, because it’s something that has always been a struggle in my life (anddd for those of you thinking that I am actually talking about houseplants… Get it together;) I don’t even TRY to water those :P)

A little over a year ago I became a flight attendant, and I may have made it seem like I was going to become some glamour girl in the sky, with all my posts about the red nails, and the saving lives, and the up close facial pics of my smiling, ruby-colored lips. The truth though never was captured on a camera, and was never documented in any way except deep down in the secret parts of my heart, the parts that I rarely let people see. I was going to flight attendant school because I was broken. I was broken and I had lost who I thought was the love of my life, and in that moment I had forgotten how to breathe. I thought, that if I could just get my wings.. if I could just get some altitude.. some perspective.. maybe.. just maybe I could learn to breathe again.

There was only one flaw in my theory, because in order to learn to breathe again you have to come up for air. You have to stop submerging yourself in whatever or whoever is stopping your air flow. I had the free flight benefits and after some time passed (and some distance) my heart felt like it had healed enough, and I started going back. I began flying back to the person who could never love me in the way that I really needed. Each time, it felt like a high, it felt right, until I would fly away again, and I would wait for a call that would never come. Every time that I went back I broke my own heart. Over and over again. The never ending cycle of healing and then ripping off the scab. Until the day that I flew away and didn’t look back.

That Pinterest quote is so simple, but it holds so much power, because how many of you are watering dead plants? A relationship of any kind whether it be romantic or friendship should be like two glasses half full of water. One person pours a little of themselves into the other and the other returns the favor. Sometimes one glass pours more than the other, but in the end they equal out. That’s what a relationship is. That’s what a friendship is: give and take. If you find yourself pouring yourself into someone who can’t ever give anything back you will find yourself like an empty glass, and it’s just not worth it. I am not saying you should give up on love or friendship when things get hard, but I am saying you should give up when it starts to take more than it gives. I love this quote from Grey’s Anatomy, “He is not the sun. You are.” It reminds me that in my life, I have to put myself first. I have to take care of me. You have to take care of yourself, and I promise that the day you stop watering dead plants it’s you who starts to grow. Because you are the sun. He is not the sun.

I lost someone who I thought I couldn’t live without, but flight after flight, day after day I realized that I was enough, and I gained myself. I learned to love myself enough to realize what I deserved, and I put away my watering can.

xoxo,

Megan Marie