My disorientation was utter and complete: After 18 years in the thrilling, maddening world of magazine publishing, with its cutthroat pace but lush benefits, I left to carry my parents across their heartbreaking finish lines. After they died just months apart, I thought I could reclaim my place in my chosen career, but digital disruption meant doors were closing all around me. 

I found a gig, then got downsized. Applying for dozens of jobs and hearing nothing back became the new rhythm of my days. I stitched together piece work and watched my cash reserves disappear. I realized I had stepped off the escalator — and that maybe I would never get back on one again. I felt the dull ache of fear take root in my belly.

So, in a world that suddenly didn’t make sense to me anymore, I tried to escape. I moved out of the city to a rural community.  I needed grounding, quite literally: more time and space for putting my hands in the earth and for horizons that stretched beyond just work — even though I very much needed to figure out what exactly I would be doing for work, as well. 

I installed a modest garden at my new home, digging up rocks and turning the heavy earth, adding amendments and hope in the name of soil health. I was soothed by the physical fatigue, so much better than the empty, draining agony of writing half-hearted LinkedIn posts, asking AI to tweak my resume, emailing friends and trying not to come off as desperate.

My gardens flourished. I rose at dawn each morning and dedicated myself to my thriving vegetable garden, the flower beds, and the patio containers. Apparently, I hadn’t left ambition behind in the city; now I was pouring it into the earth. 

And I received the dividends in plant growth. That first summer, I harvested 250 pounds of tomatoes, red, zebra-striped green, dusky purple, and orange. I put up sauces, jam, and salsa, my shelves groaning with the plenty. I cut armfuls of lisianthus I had grown from seedlings, making luscious bouquets that made my heart sing. I shored up my identity with these successes while steady work, which for so many years had defined who I believed I was, continued to elude me.

But the next year, my sense of myself as a capable human completely crumbled, defeated by spider mites. 

Well, it wasn’t just the mites. It was early blight on the tomatoes and mosaic virus on the cucumbers. And it was me. I was continuing to stitch together work with rubber bands and paper clips and prayer, and my self-blame became all-consuming. Why couldn’t I figure this out, my pivot? Why hadn’t I translated my skills, maximized my network, fallen into something marvelous and new? Why was I failing? And now my garden was failing, too. I collected my bitter seeds and wallowed in despair.

Then, a sudden break, or so I thought. A part-time role acting as a full-time director of a small nonprofit opened. I was thrilled for the work and the opportunity, but the problems were large, our budgets were small, and the duties endless. Morning garden work was replaced with a commute; evening garden work gave way to night-time events and late-night cash reconciliations. The garden was left to its own devices. 

In the end, I had to lay off the team and then myself. The solution to my work problem had not yet arrived.

But I harvested 26 poblanos off a single plant. I beat back the mites just enough to eat some of the blighted tomatoes. I pressed seeds into the ground haphazardly in August and was rewarded with a gorgeous crop of perfect carrots in October. One of my sunflowers managed to evade the deer and grew into seven feet of beaming sunshine. 

My garden had survived without me. The work I had done was still paying forward. Reaping these seemingly unearned rewards healed something deeply sad inside me. It revealed to me the lie I had built my entire life around: that I’m responsible for whatever comes into my life. If it’s success, I earned it. If it’s failure, I deserve it.

Seeing that lie made plain in my garden allowed me to let it go. Life has a natural rhythm that is not always connected to my desires and my effort. The plants and pests and bumblebees and fungi and soil microbes all keep doing their thing, regardless of how much attention I have to spare. The effort I put toward finding work mattered, even if some days it felt futile. Some of the rewards were not yet visible. Every day, growth is happening and life is moving forward, even if I can’t see it — and that unceasing rhythm is what finally taught me to let go of the fantasy that I am in charge. 

My garden taught me, kindly, that I am just a lowly human, easily fooled by the stories I tell myself about my life — about my successes, my failures, my future. And sometimes forgetting that every moment I am alive is an opportunity for awe and grace and the grounding pleasure of being right where I am in life, whatever my struggles, work or otherwise. And, yes, the garden taught me that, too.