{"id":39625,"date":"2026-06-02T00:51:52","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T05:51:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=39625"},"modified":"2026-06-02T00:51:52","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T05:51:52","slug":"its-hard-to-nurture-whats-alive-when-you-water-dead-flowers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=39625","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s hard to nurture what\u2019s alive when you water dead flowers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I have trouble giving up on people.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just people, though. It\u2019s more accurate to say I have trouble giving up on whatever fantasy of the future that I\u2019ve created in my mind. Sometimes that involves people. Sometimes it\u2019s an achievement I\u2019ve set my heart on. It can be any fantasy of what I think my life is going to look like.<\/p>\n

I fall in love with my fantasies, I suppose. My life will be perfect when I make this thing happen. Everything will be perfect when this woman loves me and we live happily ever after.<\/p>\n

And when I figure out that I\u2019ve been chasing the wrong thing, I have trouble letting go of it. I have trouble saying that this thing is never going to happen. It\u2019s hard for me to admit that maybe the thing I\u2019ve been chasing was never good for me anyway.<\/p>\n

When I stubbornly cling to dreams that are already dead, I sometimes allow myself to miss better opportunities. I sometimes mope so much about what I can\u2019t have \u2014 even something I\u2019ve decided isn\u2019t good for me \u2014 that I miss better choices.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been very difficult for me to stop watering dead flowers.<\/p>\n

The strange thing is that I usually know better.<\/p>\n

If a friend came to me and described the same situation, I could often see the answer immediately. I\u2019d tell him that some relationships aren\u2019t meant to work. I\u2019d tell him that some goals are worth abandoning. I\u2019d tell him that not every dream deserves to survive forever.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s easier to recognize reality when you\u2019re standing outside the story.<\/p>\n

When it\u2019s my own story, I become attached to the version of the future I\u2019ve imagined. I don\u2019t just want a particular outcome. I start building an entire life around it in my mind.<\/p>\n

I imagine conversations that haven\u2019t happened yet. I imagine experiences that don\u2019t exist. I imagine a future that feels so vivid and so appealing that it begins to feel real. Even inevitable.<\/p>\n

Then reality shows up with inconvenient facts.<\/p>\n

The woman who said she wanted me suddenly doesn\u2019t choose me.<\/p>\n

An opportunity disappears. Or maybe it was never really the opportunity I thought it was.<\/p>\n

Or maybe a plan that I see building something great simply doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n

The thing I\u2019ve been chasing turns out to be something entirely different than I thought it was.<\/p>\n

At that point, a healthy person adjusts course and moves on. I tend to stand there looking at the dead dream \u2014 holding the watering can.<\/p>\n

Maybe if I try a little harder.<\/p>\n

Maybe if I\u2019m more patient.<\/p>\n

Maybe if I refuse to give up.<\/p>\n

Sometimes persistence is a virtue. Sometimes it isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

One of the most difficult lessons I\u2019ve had to learn is that determination and denial can look remarkably similar from the inside. Both involve refusing to quit. Both involve continuing despite setbacks. Both involve believing things will improve.<\/p>\n

The difference is that determination is attached to reality. Denial is attached to fantasy.<\/p>\n

The problem isn\u2019t that dead flowers refuse to bloom. The problem is that while I\u2019m staring at them, life keeps happening somewhere else.<\/p>\n

Opportunities appear and disappear.<\/p>\n

People enter and leave our lives.<\/p>\n

New possibilities emerge.<\/p>\n

And if I\u2019m obsessed with what I\u2019ve lost, I may never notice what I\u2019ve been given. I may never notice that other people and other opportunities are asking for permission to come into my life.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve spent enough years on Earth to recognize that some of the things I once desperately wanted would have made me miserable. I can look back on things I’ve wanted with all my heart \u2014 especially romantic relationships \u2014 and realize that getting what I wanted would have been the worst thing in the world for me.<\/p>\n

At the time I was doubling down on dead flowers, I couldn\u2019t see that.<\/p>\n

I thought I was mourning the loss of happiness. In reality, I was mourning the loss of an illusion. The future I imagined wasn\u2019t being taken away from me. It never existed in the first place.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what makes letting go so difficult.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re not giving up something real. We\u2019re giving up something that felt real.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re burying a future that lived entirely in our own imagination.<\/p>\n

And yet there comes a point when we have to stop watering dead flowers.<\/p>\n

Not because we\u2019re cynical.<\/p>\n

Not because we\u2019re bitter.<\/p>\n

Not because we no longer care.<\/p>\n

We stop because life is too short to spend it mourning futures that will never arrive.<\/p>\n

There are still living things around us. There are still people to love. There are still opportunities worth pursuing. There are still flowers capable of blooming.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s hard to nurture what\u2019s alive when we keep pouring all of our attention into things that died long ago.<\/p>\n

I know that.<\/p>\n

I just don\u2019t always remember it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have trouble giving up on people. It\u2019s not just people, though. It\u2019s more accurate to say I have trouble giving up on whatever fantasy of the future that I\u2019ve created in my mind. Sometimes that involves people. Sometimes it\u2019s an achievement I\u2019ve set my heart on. It can be any fantasy of what I Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-aj7","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39625"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39641,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39625\/revisions\/39641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}