Tomatoes ripening on a vine

Will has a garden every summer and this year he's growing tomatoes and other yummy veggies to have. Every day I would come home, watching this tomato, waiting for it to ripen so we could eat it. It takes so much time, as we have been watching these tomatoes for weeks. And there's nothing that can be done to rush the process.

The patience and time it takes to wait for tomatoes to ripen made me think about this transition of being a mother with a career. I am having quite a time trying to figure out how to have peace, balance and feel like I'm doing what I need to do. I want the transition to be smooth and happen quickly. I am forgetting that it's going to take time to develop new routines, to prioritize how time and energy are spent and to learn how to do it all - and to learn how to NOT do it all and accept that which is undone as okay and not the end of the world.

Then, I came in one day and found this tomato I'd been watching sitting on the counter with a big nasty chunk eaten out of it by a chipmunk. Will tried to save it by picking it and letting it ripen, just planning to cut the bite off that the chipmunk took. Yesterday, we ended up throwing that tomato away because it was rotten around where the bite was. Pretty disgusting. And very disappointing.

So, now I wonder about that metaphor and what it means. While at first the vine-ripening tomato was a perfect metaphor for needing to be patient and giving myself time to transition and ripen into a balanced mother with a career, I'm not sure what it means when the chipmunk comes and takes a bite out of your progress and you end up throwing away what you've been waiting for...

I think I'll just wait for another tomato. There are plenty on the vine. Maybe really the entire tomato vine is more like my life and the individual tomatoes represent the different ways I'm trying to transition and achieve a new balance in my life. The chipmunk represents those things that are unexpected that come and present obstacles.

So, there are other tomatoes, plenty of other tomatoes. And right now, they all seem very, very green.