What Are Your Care Instructions?

After a poor experience, we recently signed a new agreement with a new estate agent to help us with selling our apartment.

Our new agent was very clear with me: The photos are important. You need to get a sofa and you need to make it look more like a home.

I was grateful for the direction.

Aside from finding a sofa, dining table and chairs, some lampshades and soft furnishings, my plan to turn our bare and impersonal apartment into an irresistible home consisted mainly of filling the space with plants.

I took a trip to our local garden centre and spent a long time looking at all the beautiful houseplants, seeing which ones called out to me and then checking the care labels to see whether our apartment would make a suitable environment.

I came away with several beautiful plants.

When I got home, I turned to the internet to learn more about each of them. I felt responsible for their health and wellbeing and wanted to do what I could to help them thrive.

This one needed full, but not direct sunlight. That one would be ok in partial shade. This one liked having its leaves misted to mimic the humidity of its home environment. That one shouldn’t be watered too often. This one should be repotted each spring.

And of course, though the care labels or the internet didn’t say it, they all appreciated being spoken to with love.

Somewhere in the midst of my research, I thought to myself, why don’t we do this for each other?

I’d been having some challenges in my relationship. I didn’t feel as though my needs were being met and I certainly didn’t feel like I was thriving. I wanted my partner to take notice of my care label and to be more enthusiastic about what he might be able to do to help me thrive.

I also realised that I hadn’t been doing a very good job of doing this for him. Did I know his care label? Was I taking a serious interest in what I could to do help him thrive whilst also honouring my own needs?

Lately, things have eased just a little and we’re (hopefully) finding our way.

In the absence of a written label like the ones we find on plants at garden centres, I’ve started to be more vocal about my care needs. I’m having to learn afresh the importance of taking care of myself in order to have the strength to support others.

At the same time, I’m also trying my best to remind myself that it’s not just me in this relationship (ha ha!) and that my partner has his own care label and needs too.

We need to take responsibility for our own needs and ask how we can support one another to thrive.

It’s been a beautiful idea to me lately, this idea of care instructions.

What would the world be like if we were both more confident in sharing our care instructions with the people in our lives and more interested in the care instructions of others?

What are your care instructions?
What are the care instructions of those you love and cherish?

Love and courage,

Leah