My Life's Purpose Is A Bamboo Plant

...and it ain't even a real bamboo plant.

Hey, everyone. I'm Maya - welcome back to The Avocado and Me. Before we begin today's post, I want to take you all on a little road trip back to July 2nd, 2018. On this day in history, I drank a lot of iced chai tea while writing a blog post titled, "1,000 Page Views!" Let me tell you - I was so freaking excited to write that post. One-thousand views was a really big deal for this little speck of a teenage girl. I felt so accomplished, and so proud of how far The Avocado and Me had come. Now, a little less than a year from July 2, 2018, there have been approximately 7,068 page views on this here blog. Everyone, we septupled the number of page views on The Avocado and Me in less than a year. That is insane. I am so incredibly grateful for you, for the time you dedicate to reading my words, and for this journey we've gone on together. You mean the world to me. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

And now, my loves, on to today's blog post.

A lot has happened in the past year. I grew an inch taller, which wasn't supposed to happen. I made the most amazing friends, said goodbye to some, and discovered the magic that is gluten-free avocado toast. In the last year, I managed to keep a bamboo plant (that's not really a bamboo plant) alive.

On my birthday, my darling friend Hannah walked into our creative writing classroom, cupping an itsy-bitsy plant in her hands. When she handed it to me with a hug and birthday wishes, she told me it was called a Lucky Bamboo plant. Native to central Africa, the Lucky Bamboo is not a true bamboo, but rather a flowering plant from the Asparagaceae family. Please note that it does not belong to the asparagus family (I'm looking at you, spell check). As indicated by its name, the Lucky Bamboo plant "is believed to bring happiness and prosperity" (Wikipedia). It is also incredibly difficult to kill or destroy, which is good, because I don't have the best track record with house plants. Hannah knows me well; this was the perfect, perfect birthday gift. I treasure my Lucky Bamboo - every time I see it on my desk, planted in its speckled blue pot, I smile and think of my friends. It's a little source of happiness.

But it has proven to be so, so much more than that.

I do not think I'm alone in saying that, on occasion, I feel depressed, stressed, or anxious. As a human being, I get really sad sometimes, to the point where I feel paralyzed in this dark sort of head space. Stress and anxiety are also inevitable side effects of the human condition. We all overthink things, we all feel lonely, unworthy, and unlovable. We take the good in this life with the bad, and while the good is (hopefully) present more often, the bad can still cast a very prominent shadow.

When I'm sad, mad, or worried, I tend to stop caring for myself. Sleep is thrown on the back burner, I'll forget to eat, or eat too much, I won't hydrate. Simple things like washing my face tend to be forgotten. Though it's been happening less and less frequently, I will envelope myself in this sadness. This can lead to isolation, and to awful self-talk, and to a mind that runs 500 miles per hour. But no matter how I'm feeling, how caught up I am in the storm, I have to water that Lucky Bamboo plant.

Because -- I don't know if you know this about plants -- they will die if they aren't watered. They will turn brown and be sad and then you will feel terrible. Trust me, I've accidentally killed enough plants to know this. You have taken them out of their natural environment, so they are entirely reliant on you to keep them safe and healthy. If you fail them, the consequences are not always trivial; they can be fatal. And no one wants their plant's gravestone to say: Here lies Lucky Bamboo Plant, 10/10/2018 - (insert date here), Death by Neglect. That's just depressing. And it's a guilt trap. Thus, if I've had the best day ever, I will water my Lucky Bamboo. If I've had the worst day ever, I will water my Lucky Bamboo.

It's a constant in my life. It's a reminder that despite everything and anything, life goes on. There's no pause button, no mute, no way to turn off the bad things that happen. We must simply battle them, and emerge on the other side, better than before. Watering my Lucky Bamboo helps me remember that there are plants (and people) counting on me. That I can't give up or give into sadness, because even if I'm rendered incapable of loving myself in that moment, I have others I need to love and care for. Hannah's fabulous gift reminds me of the power of nurturing others and myself. Of the fact that girl, you gotta wash your face. Of the promise of a better tomorrow.

So, what am I saying exactly? Sometimes, my life's purpose is a bamboo plant. A bamboo plant that isn't. Sometimes, on the days I can't look in the mirror and love what I see, on the days I've failed or scraped my knee, on the days I feel lost and alone, I live for that plant. I live for it to live. I live for it to remind me how to live, peacefully, vulnerably, one day at a time. Does that make sense? I don't know. But I sure hope so. Sometimes, it's the little things in life that we live for.

Sometimes, we just have to take a deep breath, water a plant, and move on. Because this, quite simply, is life.

Advice: get a house plant. It'll change your whole entire existence.

Love,
Maya

Photo by Alesah Villalon on Unsplash, Photo by Joshua Sortino on Unsplash,
Photo by Kristopher Roller on Unsplash, Photo by Artem Beliaikin @belart84 on Unsplash,
Photo by Masaaki Komori on Unsplash, Photo by margot pandone on Unsplash