You were wrong! I can grow things!

Have you ever heard the term 'gaslighting'? I hadn't, until recently.

It's a scary idea. It's the thing where someone, usually an emotionally abusive spouse, makes someone else feel stupid or crazy by playing little tricks on them. Generally the idea is to gain more control by convincing the fooled partner that since he or she is stupid and crazy, the correct thing to do would be to defer to the other party's judgment in matters.

I guess there was a movie by the same name, and that's when the word caught on. I never saw the movie.

A little while back, though, I saw the word in a discussion online, and looked it up, and was horrified.

And I thought of a cute little garden in the corner of a house.

Because one time, about eight or ten years ago, I decided to plant a garden for the first time.

I mean, I had never planted anything before, really.

And the house where I was living had this funny little inside-out corner- that is to say, a place where a corner was outside. And my ex, my then-partner, though I hesitate to use the word 'partner' as we were really far from partners in anything, said it would be a great place for a garden, that maybe I'd feel better if I had a neat little hobby like growing some flowers, maybe it would snap me out of my depression and make me feel better about myself.

I jumped on the idea.

He built a fence, just a little maybe 18-inch high fence that was semi-circular from one point of the corner to the other.

And I looked at the space, and saw, instead of a triangle or a square, a quarter-circle in the space, and thought it would be really pretty to make the flowers come out in rays from the center, instead of plain rows.

So I bought seeds and started planting, and he laughed at me. Flowers go in rows. Don't you know how to plant a garden? These will never grow that way. You're not going to grow anything like that. And so on.

Well, now, all logic dictates that flowers do not care whether they are in rows or rays or spell out initials or whatever- they grow if they have the right climate, light, and water, not if they're put in proper orderly rows.

So I didn't listen, but I did worry. What if my flowers didn't grow?

And they didn't. Nothing grew.

I went and bought flowers. Seedlings in flats, instead of seeds.

I put them in the ground. I watered them. My ex told me they wouldn't live like that. Flowers grow in rows.

They all died.

And when I read the term 'gaslighting' that's what I thought of. Him asking if I'd watered the garden yet today. Him commenting, "What's going on with your garden? Looks like the flowers are all dying." And looking at the garden, the dying space, and realizing he was right. I couldn't make things grow. I was too dumb to make things grow.

I have never tried to plant anything since. I accepted that I have two very brown thumbs and cannot make things grow. Until I read that word. Gaslighting. And I had these mental images of someone maybe pouring salt water on ground, or spraying weed killer on growing plants, or some other form of sabotage. I don't know that he did anything like that, only that he could've and that I would never have known....and that he was so smug about being right. Heck, maybe I watered them wrong. Maybe the ground wasn't good. Maybe they didn't get enough sun in that corner. But I do know he could have, and that it wouldn't surprise me any.

So, shortly after learning of the word, and the phenomena, of gaslighting, I bought some seeds and put them in the ground. Vegetables this time, not flowers.

And right now, less than two weeks later, I do not have any vegetables.

But I do have sprouts. They are sprouting. I have sprouts that can grow into spinach, and ones that can grow into zucchini, and ones that can grow into butternut squash. I don't have any that can grow into carrots or cherry tomatoes yet. But the thing is, two weeks ago, I didn't feel confident that I'd have any. I still thought maybe I just can't grow things, maybe I'm just broken, just stupid and crazy and can't make plants grow.

Yesterday when I saw the first three or four sprouts, I wanted to fall down in the dirt and cry from pure joy.

So there you are, dude. Once again, you're wrong. I'm not stupid or crazy. I can make plants grow. I can grow things. I'm not too dumb to turn seeds into plants. You are wrong, as well as being mean, manipulative, and hateful. You are wrong, and I am capable.