Heavyhanded metaphor

So I've been neglecting my garden, which isn't surprising to anyone who knows me.  My poor hydrangeas were left to fend for themselves over the winter, and here the hydrangea metaphor or symbol or meaningful image or whatever you want to call it can be understood to stand in for any old thing you can think of:  my blog; my marriage; my laundry; my health; my friendships; my stack of books to be read; my kids -- and that's just what I can think of off the top of my head.

Some heavy-duty shit has gone down around these parts in the past months, but I won't babble on about it again because there's a long list, and I've talked about some of it before and I don't want to bore you, and some of it is not just my own shit and would be an invasion of another person's privacy, and some of it is just that I am a pain in my own ass sometimes and need to shake off my winter blahs so I can blossom again -- just like my hydrangeas.

And see how I did that?  Brought it right back around again like a boss!  Who said my English major was useless?