Hi, I'm Michele Mateus, and welcome to Noticing the Ordinary. This podcast is all about solo musings and honest conversations where we share about the things we so often miss in life. There's no homework, there's no adding to your to-do list. No one needs that. Honestly, I'm just here to offer some good company and sharing something worth noticing. But a note before we dive in, I share openly and honestly here. I'm not a therapist or a doctor. This is personal sharing, not professional advice. So if you're going through something heavy, please reach out to someone who can really help. And if you're not sure where to turn to, I've got you. I've added some resources to my podcast homepage, so make sure to check those out. All right. Now let's get down to noticing something

Today I wanna share some lessons from my first ever, and very new to me, peach tree. When I got this peach tree, I planted it in my backyard couple months ago, and it had three little peaches on it, I was so excited. I was like, "Oh my gosh, we're gonna have peaches." Now, the person that we got the peach tree from said it may not produce fully this year. Typically, the second or third year is when a new tree fully produces. "Okay, no problem," but it had these little peaches on there. And then they started to grow ever so slowly. Now, I haven't been out to water my garden in a few days because it'd been raining, and so I went out to water my garden, and I'm making my way over to the peach tree. And I get there, and the peaches had been eaten. I was like, "Oh my goodness. What?" I was so excited about these peaches. They had been totally eaten, and I started to wonder, "What ate these peaches? I was looking around. I thought, "Hmm. Okay, so there's No branches are broken. I don't think it was a rat that climbed up here, but maybe. Was it birds? Like, do birds like peaches?" And then I went from this frustrated feeling To starting to notice that my imagination was taking off as though I could picture these little critters, maybe it was birds and rats, I don't know, having a picnic on my peach tree. And I went from that frustration to imagination. Now, I don't know if that's because that's just how I'm wired. I am autistic and ADHD, and my brain just moves a mile a minute, and it's very visual. But I started picturing these little critters, having this picnic out there. And then I started to think about the lessons from nature that we receive the more that we spend time in nature. And to be honest, I don't have the opportunity to spend a lot of time in nature, which is why I created this garden in my backyard I started to think about how things don't often go as planned, and nature really teaches us this and reminds us that we need to be flexible with our thinking And also how can we find joy in something that doesn't go our way? Which is really hard to do, and I'm not saying it's even possible most of the time. But today I went from frustration to honestly, like if you could see me right now, I have such a big smile on my face because I can totally picture the picnic that these little friends were having out there. So I guess the share and my lessons from the peach tree today is that, yeah, things don't always go our way, and we can be nurturing something and giving it so much love. It kinda makes me think of my kiddo, and the way that we nurture something or someone with all of our love and care, and it doesn't always turn out the way we thought. But it doesn't mean that new growth can't happen Damn you peach tree. I guess this is why the birdies came, and the rats, and whoever else, whatever else came for that picnic. Actually, now they're covered in ants, those little peaches. So the picnic continues on. And hey, I don't know why I didn't get an invite. Maybe next time they could let me know that they were coming over. Here's the lesson from the peach tree. We gotta keep on going, and we gotta keep on nurturing because more growth will happen, and I know it's fricking exhausting. I'm exhausted. I'm a parent to a child with high support needs, and it's changed my life a lot, and I'm still grappling with the grief around that. And I happen to know a lot of parents who are in the same situation as I am. And, you know, raising kids is never easy, and raising kids with disabilities it's, It's, well, I don't know. The only word I can think of right now is brutal. It's fucking brutal. It's really, really hard So I wanna thank the peach tree, and I wanna thank the little critters that came by and had a picnic. Although, I will say that I'm a little stung that they didn't invite me. But this morning when I came across my peach tree and saw those peaches, because I've been checking on them, okay? I have been checking on them, like waiting for them to mature and be the size that I could pick and just, mm, bite into. I've never had a peach tree before, And what originally felt as a wah, wah kind of moment, like, "Oh, here we go. The critters got to them before we did," actually turned into an opportunity for my imagination to be fired up I think that's the gift. That's the gift from the peach tree. That's the gift from the critters that came and had a picnic The opportunity to go from frustration and remembering that we can shift our energy just as I did today. And listen, I know it's not always easy to reframe or to go from frustrated to having your imagination run wild and a cartoon playing in your head of all these cute critters having the best time of their lives. I get that. It's not realistic to think that's always possible. Today, I got there pretty quick because, like I said, I was examining these peaches, trying to find out who did it, like a little detective, nature detective, and then I switched from detective mode to, "Aw, cute. I hope they had fun." I know that's not always possible because there's not always something that will help you in the reframe. So in this case, the critters, the cute little critters, they kinda helped me in the reframe Now, if my house had been vandalized, I don't think I'd be going, "Aw, cute." Right? So it really depends on the situation. A lot of people ask me, "Oh my gosh, you're like a bounce back queen. Like, you're so resilient. How do you do that." I've kind of always just been like that. So, I honestly do not know. It's not something I do I really just think it's how I'm wired. And being wired that way doesn't mean that it makes life any easier. It doesn't mean that when you see the peaches, you're like, "Oh, yay, critters came today. I hope they had a great meal." No. When you're wired the way I am, you still feel pain, you still feel frustration, you still feel sadness, And quite frankly, it can sometimes also be a curse because when you are down, when you are frustrated, when you are so angry you can't even face the day. Sometimes you're not offered the grace, and I suspect other people who are wired the way I am can relate So to wrap up my thoughts around my peach tree and the critters that ate my peaches Sometimes we need to reframe. Sometimes we need some acceptance, and sometimes that acceptance is radical acceptance, and it's really fricking hard to do But if there's anything I've learned, especially over the last three years, is that it's often a slow process, yet it's possible We're not always gonna quickly bounce back and have our imaginations flowing with cute little cartoons of critters nibbling on peaches, that's for sure But I do know and I, I always will believe that it's possible, not only for me, but for everyone here who's listening I think that's what they call giving ourselves grace and having a little patience Until next time, I'm Michele Mateus, your host of Noticing the Ordinary, and I truly hope that something ordinary stops you in your tracks soon, maybe even a yummy, juicy peach