Charlie’s Gardens

I walk down the hallway of the Mental Health Center and into the crisis office. Charlie’s on the phone and several crisis workers are deep in conversation. Somebody points me toward a computer. I log in as an administrator and get to work.

“Listen, I don’t care if he’s the best guy in the world,” Charlie says into the phone, “if you’re giving up your life for him, it isn’t worth it.”

I open the C drive and double-click on Documents and Settings. Too many user profiles. I start deleting old ones.

“You said you had everything going for you a few months ago. Then you met this great guy—” he held his breath, “Yeah, I believe he’s a really great guy, but that’s not the point. You said you had your life worked out perfectly before you met him, and now you’re depressed.”

I clear the temporary internet items of idly browsed content.

“No, this isn’t just the way it is”, he repeats the caller’s words, “you were doing great six months ago. So what happened? Well, I wouldn’t say you threw it all away, but you’ve been neglecting yourself—how’s that?”

There’s a progress bar that’s not progressing. I sit back in my chair.

“I’m going to give you an image to picture in your mind. Are you ready? Okay, you’re in a garden. It’s a beautiful garden, and it’s just yours. You’ve put a lot of work into this garden. And it shows. The hedges are trimmed. The weeds are pulled. You feel good spending time there.

“Now, you meet a really great guy, and he has a garden too. But your gardens aren’t right next to each other, there’s some empty space in between. So you have to build a new garden, to connect them. Now, you really want to make this one nice too. So you put a lot of work into it. There’s a little stream running through, so you build a wooden bridge over it and a gazebo and everything. Okay. Now what happens? Let’s say he goes back to his garden.”

I start to clean the registry.

“No he’s not leaving you. Maybe he wants to go camping with his friends. So he’s gone for a couple days. But you can’t stay in the middle garden. When he leaves, you have to go back to your garden. When you get there, you realize you were spending all your time in the middle one. You’ve been neglecting yours and it’s at total mess. Things have been knocked over or blown away and everything’s overgrown and covered in weeds.”

I start defragmenting.

“This is your life right now. It’s a mess. You can make it better, but you have to spend some time and energy on it. You have to stop spending all your time in the middle garden.”

I set the computer to restart in two hours and get up to leave. My job is done.

“No, you don’t have to neglect the middle garden. You can take care of both. But you have to find a balance.”

Ah. I smile and walk out the door.