A combination of work and travel and household dynamics led to the almost abandonment of the backyard as a place to be and was a part of the burden of upkeep of a house. This house had become a burden, not a home.

Through the mirth of a happy accident, I fell in love. I began to realize this house could, if desired, be a home. A home where I could build my life with someone who I was madly in love with. A man who loves me back with as much (or more) passion. Bit by bit, as we began to plan for our future, I began to see this house as a haven from the storm.

And I began nesting.

About once a week, I would clean out a drawer or clean out a closet. I had realized that, although we had been divorced for more than four years, my ex-husband still had stuff here. Not just little stuff, significant amounts of things. Because it was easier to leave stuff he didn’t want to deal with as he created a new life with a new wife. I finally broke the hold this stuff had on me the day I took the wedding gown I had found in the back of the hall closet and put it in the trash and carried it to the curb.

It’s a fabulous story, a story to which I will not digress, but I will tell you this: it was freeing to break the hold my former life had on me. When I finally realized I had been given the chance at a real life with a man who loved me for me. And that it was ok to let go of the trappings, feelings, and burdens of the past.

After my eldest daughter moved out, I went on an all-out-full-scale cleaning binge. I reclaimed this house for my future. Bit by bit. Room by room. Including the back porch.

I’ve swept and cleaned. I’ve planted marigolds. I’ve planted herbs that I will cook with, like basil and sage and dill. I’ve also planted a couple of tomato plants, a cucumber plant and a zucchini plant. I finally took the indoor/outdoor George Foreman Grill out of the box in which it stayed after I bought it a couple of years ago and put it together. And I hung a beautiful little copper wind chime.

Every morning when I water my plants or sit and enjoy my first cup of coffee, I am reminded you are never too old to find love or contentment. Every time I step out on the patio to pluck a basil leaf for something I am cooking, I am reminded it is possible to reclaim yourself from your past, just as I reclaimed the porch. And just as I watch my little tomato plants grow, I am reminded that good things come to those who wait.

My back porch may be simple from an outside observer, but to me it’s a symbol. It’s a symbol to remind me you can give yourself permission to love. And you have to let go of some of the past and purge it out to allow someone to love you back.