Best Efforts

I tried to end 2022 without tragedy, but despite my best efforts, that did not happen.

I have two ruby red grapefruit trees growing in my backyard. They were a gift from my friend, Lindy the Citrus Queen.

I planted them exactly as she instructed and they had slowly started to grow heavenward, promising to one day provide me with a never ending supply of juicy fruit.

And then, winter happened.

Not South Georgia winter. That’s usually never a big deal. Our winters consist of a couple of days when there’s frost on the ground and maybe temps that dip down into the thirties. Those days are rare and far between.

This was different.

The weather people said that come Christmas weekend, we were going to get some real life winter. The kind that our cousins from the Great White North enjoy each year.

Instead of temperatures in the 30s, they were predicting that our thermometers were going to roll back to something like 18 degrees.

The big round thermometer mounted on the side of my pool house has never had its little arm swing that far left. I wasn’t even sure it went that low.

Well, when we got the news of this impending blizzard, people basically lost their minds.

There was a run on water and canned Beanie-Weanie at the Walmart and the local hardware stores had to break up fistfights between people struggling to get the last of the pipe wrap.

Of course, I wrapped my outdoor pipes and dripped all my faucets just like my Daddy taught me. But then I remembered my grapefruit trees.

I knew they would not make it through a night of the same kind of weather they get in Buffalo.

So, I put some pine straw around them and covered them in big tents of thick, translucent plastic.

I was ready. They were ready.

Except they weren’t. I wasn’t.

The pipes going to my tankless water heater burst, sending my beautiful wife into a panic thinking that she would have to endure my smelliness until the plumber got back from his Christmas vacation.

And when I unwrapped my grapefruit trees a couple days later, expecting my efforts has saved them from the polar incursion, the leaves crunched and fell to the ground in a shower of green disappointment.

Despite my best efforts, it looks like my trees didn’t make it.

Which is pretty much the story of my year.

Despite my best efforts, things didn’t turn out as I planned.

Despite my best efforts to keep my granddaughter from growing up and getting any older, she did. Another year closer to the days when she no longer wants to curl up in my lap, eat popcorn and watch Bluey with her Pippy.

Despite my best efforts, I failed to get any younger. My shoulder hurts when I lift my arm. My hip hurts when I stand too long. My neck hurts. My knees hurt. I basically hurt all over.

Despite my best efforts, I failed to get ahead at work. I tried to work smarter and more efficiently but I ended the year exhausted, with a stack of unfinished projects.

And, I guess worst of all, despite my best efforts to break old habits, be more motivated, be less dependent on others for my happiness in 2022, I often failed.

Again.

It seems that despite our best efforts, we always end up right back where we started year after year.

Thank goodness we get to start all over come January 1st.

We get to try and do better and maybe next year, our best efforts will be… better.

We won’t screw up as much. We’ll break old habits. We’ll hurt less. We’ll hurt others less.

We won’t kill any more trees.