Digressions: My Life in 500 Words or Less

They appeared about a week ago, as they do every year. The yellow ones, anyway. Though they are a bit earlier this year, maybe they need to be.

I’m talking about the numerous crocuses that spring up in our backyard. They appear in yellow, white and purple, popping up over the course of a few weeks at staggered times.

They’ve arrived at a time of unusual turmoil in our household. Things are abnormally out of sorts.

It began about a month ago. First, our home sustained roof damage from a wind storm. Then, a week and a half later, our home received damage from a neighbor’s tree falling on our property. That tree hit our back porch roof, taking out a section of our privacy fence in the process.

Then, on Tuesday, we had to call a plumbing service for an issue that arose.

It appears that old adage about bad things happening in threes is proving to be true, at least in our case.

To say the past month has been stressful is an understatement. Calls and texts to insurance representatives, contractors and plumbing services as well as in-person consultations and scheduling all visits have made each day’s itinerary fairly uncertain. And that does not include the financial strain that looms before us.

But I keep thinking about those crocuses. I keep thinking how they pop up every year, sometimes early, sometimes late, after being trampled, despite season after season of weather from one extreme to the other.

And — despite the exhausting and extended stress and strain we are experiencing — I know we will do the same: we’ll come back from everything.

We will push through it all.

We will flourish.

We are perennial.