I’ve got this thing with strawberries. This love/hate relationship. I wait all year till they are “in season” and then I go slay me some strawberries and come home with the whole cardboard carrier each time. I mean when they are good, they’re good. And luckily no one is allergic in our house and they freeze and everything is just groovy.
Except when I get distracted or there’s that stinkin’ moldy one in the middle of the carton spreading it’s filth to the rest of them. And you don’t know that as soon as you reach in to get a tasty red strawberry it’s going to implode on you and get it’s red guts all over the place. Some of you might be concerned with my binging fruit purchasing habits (and don’t worry my husband is too), but I just can’t help myself. I have one kid who can plow through a whole carton in a morning. And when they’re cheap, it’s like… why not?! Even if some go bad– it’s still worth it. They’re healthy and strawberry season comes once a year.
And don’t get me started on the whole fake strawberry industry. Somehow they’ve genetically engineered some of the suckers to look like they’re ripe, but really they are completely white on the inside. I call these “painted strawberries.” You gotta test a few– see if they are actually real. My mother, bless her, always kept her strawberries in the fridge, always. Which means we probably never ate a ripe strawberry in our young life. I REFUSE. Absolutely refuse to put any strawberry in the fridge. Is it ripe? Eat it or freeze it. If it’s not, I’d rather let it ROT.
Anyway, yesterday was one of the rotten days when time had gotten away from my strawberry sleuthing and practically a whole carton was worthless. What a disappointment. I like to think I’m somehow nourishing the soil by putting them down my garbage disposal since I gave up on composting, but I know better.
I feel like these last few weeks have been like that stinkin rotten strawberry carton. We’ve had some trauma, some disappointing heartache, and I’m just like- seriously?! This whole carton is wasted? This whole thing– flippin- TRASH!?! It’s so disheartening and disillusioning.
The sad part is our little trauma was like, perhaps the tip of the iceberg of someone else’s life altering trauma. And I’m just MAD about it. I’m just fed up. Strawberries are supposed to be ripe, delicious and eaten. Kids are supposed to be safe, loved, protected and cared for. This moldy sneaky rotten whatevers that take what’s good and taint it. They make me mad. They make me fed up. They make me disillusioned, helpless and just don’t even want to be reminded any more.
Take the strawberries away and flush them down the sink. Take the trauma and stuff it. I don’t want it. But I know I can’t do it. My strawberries may not ruin the whole waterway system, but I can’t not deal with this hurt, this problem. I can’t bury it. I have to find its proper place.
I have to go buy the flippin compost and stop wasting these fuzzy strawberries. I have to use the destructors against themselves and bury it and then turn it over like 5 items. And then sift through it again and then use it to grow something new. But it’s work, And I’m tired. And sometimes I just want to throw it in the plastic trash and pretend it’s not biodegradable.
You know? “Do the work.”
It feels so overwhelming.
It’s so helpful when in trauma people throw you a life line. They say. Here, call this number#. Here talk to this person. I am HERE, if you need me. You can do this. “I can do this.” I can learn to compost. Someone send me the bucket. <I CAN DO HARD THINGS.>