Once Upon a Time

I'm kind of an analogy person and in light of yesterday's post, I just wanted to add these thoughts that mulled through my head this morning.

Let's say you had a great love of beautiful flowers.  You loved imagining being surrounded by them and very little could make you happier than the thought of a lovely garden in your own backyard.  So, you begin and you do it your way.  You rush out to the store and you buy seeds and you come home and you plant all your seeds in your yard.  You plan it out exactly the way you want it to look and you have picked seeds that are going to grow in a lovely contrast of bright colors.  You can hardly wait to see your garden dream realized.  

And soon you begin to see it.  Tiny sprouts are emerging from the ground and you are so incredibly excited.  You water the little sprouts and try to pluck out any weeds that might endanger their livlihood.  You know that success is right around the corner as the little green sprouts shoot up a tiny bit more.

Then the next morning you walk outside to check on your dream and you find all your thriving little sprouts have died.  You are crushed and tearful.  What could have possibly gone wrong?  Your hopes are dashed so quickly it leaves you breathless and you mourn your loss for several days after, torturing yourself with what might have been if only it hadn't all gone so horribly wrong.

One morning you wake up and discover that you are fueled once more.  You are so not going to give up on this dream of a flowering garden.  So, you run out to the store and you buy a book on how to grow gardens and you spend days pouring over it, seeing some things you could have done differently and your hopes are renewed once more.  So you follow the book's instructions to the T as you begin again, planting, watering, tending, hoping.  You feel more confident this time because you are doing everything absolutely right and sure enough, here comes the little sprouts again, emerging up through the soil, the reward of all your hard work.  You feel wonderful and on top of the world as your buds become sweet little flowers.  You are giddy with excitement.

You have to go away for a couple of days, but you make sure your beloved flowers are watered before you go.  You feel out of the woods this time; after all, the last time, the sprouts never made it to flowers.  So, you leave, feeling slightly unsteady about it, but you have to go.

When you return, all the little flowers have died off and you weep over their loss.  You shouldn't have gone away with things obviously still so fragile.  You are so angry with yourself and disappointed and you feel hopeless, certain your dream is never going to be realized.  You rebel and decide you never want anything to do with flowers ever again; after all, it doesn't work, they always die and it is taking a toll on you emotionally anyway. 

But you do return, again and again, with new books, new articles, new ideas and something always seems to go wrong and each time your heart breaks a little bit more as you lose a little bit more of yourself to the dream that is never going to be realized.  You decide that maybe you just don't have what it takes to grow flowers; apparently, it just isn't your thing.  You must have the thumb of death and no matter how much you love and admire their beauty, it is just not in the plan for you.

Several weeks later, you come home from work to find a flyer wedged in between your doorframe and screen door.  You open it up and find that it is an advertisement for a gardener who is looking for work.  The ad boasts that he can help you to grow anything and you feel a tiny surge of hope.  Maybe this man is the answer; maybe he can help you really get the garden past those first critical steps to a place where it can thrive.  Of course, a gardener is not without costs and once your garden is flourishing, there is no guarentee that it will continue to thrive.  You consider this carefully.  You have neighbors and friends who have incredible gardens that they have grown all by themselves with no need for something as drastic as a gardener.  But you have tried everything you know how to do.  You have poured out your heart and your soul again and again to only have your heart broken and your dreams dashed against a stone.  What if you are just one of those people who need some extra help to have this dream realized?  Is there any shame in that? 

I think WLS is a lot like this.  Some of us just need that extra boost that comes from surgery.  There are costs involved, but it will all be worth it to have the long time dream realized at last.  The flowers will be just as lovely, no matter how it is we all got there.