Thinking can get myself into trouble (ask my husband ahaha) but sometimes it pushes me outside my comfort zone or to be real with myself. I’ve been in a plant rut the whole month of January and it’s obviously an issue I created. I think it’s a bit compounded with the hobby being connected to a social media blog I put up every week.

I know I can’t compete with other people who can post almost daily pictures of their plants because they have such a diverse collection, and frankly way more than I do. I gotta let it go.

That’s the start of my rut basically but it eventually moved into trying to future-proof some of my plant purchases after seeing a gal I follow ask how people handled having a kiddo and keeping their collection alive. (I am not pregnant nor thinking of having a kid this year at all ahaha). Most people who responded said a lot of their plants died. I know it’s okay to have plants die, but I also have scaled back on the plants to those I truly want, that I would be devastated if any of my plants died. Because I like to get the most out of my money, I try to future-proof everything, and become a big planner of every step it takes in obtaining something, and make sure whatever I am about to do or buy it can overcome a couple obstacles I can imagine happening in the future.

I believe overthinking and planning gives me a sense of control over my life which is just an illusion in my opinion. So I got ahead of myself thinking into the next couple of years, and thinking of the plants I really wanted to add to my collection that would require more attention than the plants I currently owned, and worried myself into thinking I couldn’t have them or I would need to do something to protect them. I was literally putting myself into an imaginary pickle that I didn’t want to think about plants or look at them….

The final straw was I was struggling to find things to write about for the blog. I just didn’t have anything to say anymore honestly. I felt spent and a failure. A couple days ago I realized what I was doing and just had to put plants out of my mind.

I can’t future-proof things. It’s not possible. And it’s okay if something doesn’t work out long-term, doesn’t mean the value wasn’t there or I didn’t enjoy or it was a waste of time. It doesn’t mean I don’t have value as a person or passion! Nor should I expect things to work out all the time, but it doesn’t mean anything will be ruined.

Finally after I told my husband of my predicament, I felt a bit better and I swept out everything related to plants in my head, I was left with what else makes me happy and I engrossed myself in those things. (It helps to talk things out FYI with a trusted person to get out of a potential, weird headspace).

And I was excited again about something. A couple things honestly ahaha. Don’t get me wrong plants will always be in my life, but I wasn’t built for one thing to be my sole focus or passion all the time. I’m not changing anything right now, but in the future Birdie Wolf might include other interests on top of plants. It’s a little exciting to be thinking of changing the status quo but that also means pushing myself outside my comfort zone again just like when I created Birdie Wolf a year and a half ago.

I will still happy dance when a cactus has a baby, a new leaf emerges, or a  plant blooms, but if I want to continue Birdie Wolf I either have to go against my nature and spend money I don’t have building a large collection of plants I truly don’t love, or post even less than I already do which would make me sad, or include other interests.

Writing this out makes me feel ten times better and more confident of myself. I’ll see where this goes and it’ll be okay either way.