No new weight loss this week — but I’m dangerously close!

Years ago, we lived in a house that had a spread of property around it. The previous residents were an older couple, and perhaps in their excitement over living in the country, they planted a lot of trees and bushes. The problem was that their planting was haphazard and didn’t make a lot of sense; they must have just thrown everything in the air and planted it where it landed.

Yes, I did. I totally needed to cut you out of existence, tree.

There was a flowering dogwood tree near the front porch; I love dogwoods, but this one was overshadowed by a very healthy box elder that was planted roughly ten feet away. The box elder was loaded with branches, and blocked the sun from reaching the dogwood. I never much cared for that box elder; it was a nuisance tree that was in a bad spot. No, I wanted that dogwood tree to flourish.

I took my vengeance on that tree. I started by trying to prune it back; a branch here or there. Once I got started on it, I truly decided I wanted that tree gone. It would have been quicker for my husband to go after it with a chain saw, but for reasons that I don’t remember now, that never happened. So I took a small handsaw to it.

If I felt like I needed to vent about something, I’d go vent on that box elder, one branch at a time. It took a long time before the changes were noticeable, but a branch here or there, every once in a while, started letting the sunshine through to the dogwood behind it. By the time it was truly noticeable to the naked eye, probably a third of that tree was gone.

Over the course of months, I cut every branch off that tree, leaving nothing but a tall stump. My husband brought out the chainsaw and finished it off. After that, there was nothing to block the sun from getting to the dogwood, and it bloomed much better after that.

If you’re thinking this is a metaphor… well, it most certainly is. Making change takes persistence and hard work — and the results don’t happen overnight. As long as I’m still working on my weight, it will come off, and I’ll eventually reach that point, where the next phase of making this body all it can be, begins.