My Little Secret Garden

"Today seems like a day that I'd rather avoid. The feeling of leaving California is one so sad that it's almost not worth going. I love my home, but it's not my home anymore. It's nothing but a beautiful, precious, sacred memory. My own secret garden. I'll get married here and probably never live there again. My life there is done for now, so I should daily seek to find my own, new, lovely secret garden on the East Coast. Although this garden isn't quite as lovely or quite as fun, maybe I can find little bits of beauty and joy if I look harder. Life's not easy, little girl, but you just have to keep fighting."

I wrote that in a journal on a plane as I flew home from California one time. I found that journal and stopped and read it 3 times. And then I read it twice again today. I always go back in time to that little girl who loved her Secret Garden. Who crafted and created this magical place where fantasy and reality existed in the same sentence. Where creativity was cultivated with every spoken word, and where every heartbreak turned its way into another chapter in her story.

I know this sounds sad, but it's not. It's more a triumphant story of sorts; a coming of age story, where the little girl realized that the Secret Garden is wherever you choose it to be. It's when she realized that it exists within, and not in one specific place. It's more of a metaphor than it is a tangible reality, and your Secret Garden simply transforms into something more beautiful and more full with each passing season. Her Secret Garden wasn't left, it simply came with her.

My Secret Garden is now filled with precious moments with my parents. It's filled with a boy who shows me more love than my heart can sometimes fathom. It's blooming with challenges and opportunities to trust God to grow me healthy and strong for the next season. My Secret Garden is flourishing, and I'm learning to let people into my special Garden, so we can all experience its beauty together.