u/orthodox_human33

When you're thinking of having kids or not there's this question they ask: how do you imagine a holiday dinner table when you're old? I always answer full, with grandchildren running around and lots of people laughing.

But when I imagine the getting there part, pregnancy, childbirth, newborn, exhausted with kids, two car seats, two strollers, fighting, crumbs everywhere, yelling, constant mess, no time to myself, nooooo thank you.

My kid is perfect. Childbirth was...not. I don't want another. But I want the good parts of what people with happy large families have. And when I see old women with lots of kids they seem happy with many loved ones. But they also are always planning and managing, even as old ladies. I don't have that kind of energy. I don't even have any family living in my town. My siblings and my husband's siblings don't have kids so my kid doesn't have cousins.

Can anybody relate to grieving the imagined future? I don't feel the need to give my daughter siblings but I like the idea of holiday chaos later.

I'm writing this here because idk who else will understand.

So a couple years ago we bought our first house and I decided I wanted an English cottage garden and I planted a bunch of things (brand new gardener here). But then I learned about native plants and how they're supposed to help the ecosystem. Well, I wasn't too excited as I thought native gardens were kind of, like, not enough flowers just basically shrubs and ground covers. But as I learned more about them, I realized there is a huge variety of colors, shapes, sizes, and that they have a direct relationship with bugs. I've always liked bugs so I figured, why not buy a native plant.

So I went to this native plant website and there was one that stood out to me called pearly everlasting. Which was quite unique and cool and lovely.

I bought a Douglas aster and a roemer's fescue which is basically a little bunchgrass. I also bought and planted some pearly everlasting. And idk why but this affinity grew in my heart for the bunchgrass, I just felt like it was my little pet okay? So then the little bunchgrass grew big and happy which made me smile. And every time I tried to explain that I loved my bunchgrass sm, people didn't really get it. I didn't really get it either because bunchgrass doesn't flower so I figured it wasn't helping any pollinators anyway, I just fell in love with it.

I started reading about bunchgrass and the roemers fescue has a special relationship with a very unique yellow flower called golden paintbrush which was endangered for a while, it's a hemiparasite so it needs something like roemer's fescue to attach its roots to. So I ended up planting one next to my bunchgrass.

WELL ANYWAY. The other day I noticed something strange in my garden, these odd looking little orange butterflies flitting around. They really liked the garden and just wanted to hang out and flit around. I thought they were moths actually. Then the next few days they were still there, just chillin in my garden. I looked them up and they aren't moths, they are Mardon Skipper butterflies!! Which are like, super endangered, and what do you know, their caterpillars almost exclusively eat and survive off Roemer's fescue! My favorite cute bunchgrass!! I'm mind blown man.