The Land of Forgotten Toys

Well folks, rapture didn't happen this weekend. But I did experience my own kind of out of body experience on Tuesday as I watched Nurse Betty's backyard (re: the land of forgotten toys) being demolished. Some of you may wonder why this day was so important to me. Why would seeing a backyard ripped to shreds be so cathartic? It's just a backyard, after all.

Right.

Hello? Remember me? The bowl stacker? The real-life version of Monica Geller? The one who has more fun cleaning up after a party than during the actual party?

You see, boys and girls, there are two types of people in life: the bowl stackers and the "I'll just throw this glass bowl in the one last vacant spot in the cupboard and hope to hell that it doesn't come crashing into my head the next time I open the cupboard door" people. I happen to be a bowl stacker - the kind of person who believes that organization and minimalism are key to a happy, orderly life. Go ahead and hate.

And then we have my bff, the antithesis.

Coincidentally, Mamma Bestie is a bowl stacker, too. Must be a brunette thing. Or a fabulous person thing? Or that awesome people seem to gravitate toward each other...

Yeah, that's it.

So, the bff is not a bowl stacker. So what? I've got insurance and a snazzy helmet to wear when I help her put away the dishes. (It's got sparkles and is all different shades of blue.) We could all learn a thing or two from her. She's self-sufficient, successful, beautiful, and can carry on a conversation with anyone (including random people she meets - like at the park, the grocery store, the gym, the gynecologist office...Ahem. I, on the other hand, prefer to be of the "stranger danger" variety and keep my distance, only getting near after checking ID, blood type and getting a full background check.)

When it came to her backyard, she knew she'd eventually get around to having it re-landscaped and thus the whole scene never really bothered her. Instead, she focused on having the inside of her house remodeled and refreshed, and then completely overhauled the front yard. Now that she can turn her attention to the backyard, she has.

I, however, looked at that backyard every single time I came over and imagined how magical it could be with just a bit of blood, alcohol, sweat, alcohol, and tears. (I'd certainly cry, too, given the overgrowth of thorny shrubs on her side yard. Plus, I'm a wimp.) Give me a few hundred dollars (money, money, money!), a crew of sweaty, shirtless men, (yowza!) and I'd have this backyard looking fab-u-lous! (Like me!) But seeing it sit, (cue sad music) year after year, summer after summer, vacant...lonely...decrepit, made me want to overhaul it that much more. My bowl stacking tendencies almost forced me to do just that when Nurse Betty mentioned last month that she was going to start interviewing landscapers.

What? Really? Hallelujah! Lord have mercy! My prayers have been answered!

I could (read: will) make lots of sarcastic comments about the state of this backyard in its pre-demo state. But the truth behind this backyard rip and renew is that we all have a little excess growth hindering us. We all have something that we've yet to take care of that's become a festering, Ebola-laden, feces-throwing, monkey on our back. And until we rip it off, however painful that may be, we won't realize the true beauty lurking beneath the overgrowth. Sometimes tearing away the surface reveals a beauty unimaginable.

For Nurse Betty, this is one of the very last steps in her post-mortem divorcee life. If she can tackle this backyard on her own, what can she not handle in life? Sure, it's scary. We've all seen one too many episodes where Mike Holmes stands in the kitchen of some poor soul with his charming smile and Canadian accent, telling the homeowner how he's made it right. Contractors can be shady. And trusting your gut is key. Nurse Betty is learning to trust her gut and stand on her own two feet.

The fact that her feet were standing in a backyard that looked more like the Serengeti Plains is beside the point...

Or that you could play a fabulous game of Marco Polo and never find one another...

Or that all sorts of inflatable toys were discovered during the demo...

But yeah, that's all beside the point. Totally...