Growing up the worst punishment imaginable to me was having to mow the lawn and pull weeds from our gardens surrounding the house.

Every summer starting around the age of 12, I would have to pull out a 60-pound monstrosity out of the garage every Friday as well as a wheelbarrow and a rusty hoe. This made me dread the end of winter. Just thinking about the 10 consecutive tries it would take to even turn the damn machine on in the first place still makes my blood boil as if I were under that August heat back in 2008.

The idea of having to push something that weighed almost the same as me seemed intentionally cruel and to think that people enjoyed this and did this for a living did not make even the slightest amount of sense in my young brain. The 3 hours of torture and back pain that came from cutting the grass, hoeing the garden, and transporting said grass and weed to another location everytime the machine stopped running were not compensated enough by a mere $20 dollar bill everytime I left the front, back, and side lawn impeccable.

In all honesty, no amount of money will ever bring back the innocence that I lost cleaning up what I dubbed Lucifers lawn, which always seemed to grow faster than everyone else's, with my outdated lawn mower from hell. I thought if only I had a better lawn mower, one I could ride, or maybe a Roomba that cuts grass life would be so much easier, but for young Juan Pablo, that day never came.

However, as I grew older and mowing my lawn became more and more of a habit I began to grow fond of the little details I could focus on while I mowed the lawn. The fresh smell of cut grass, the hundreds of tiny animals escaping certain doom, and the satisfaction of seeing my lawn looking beautiful. This truly grew my character as many times I overheated, even now, but I refused to call it quits until I felt satisfied with my work.

Recently I crossed a new threshold in my life as a new lawn mower which can cut grass like butter with a hot knife replaced the old clunky machine. After years of hard work and effort, I can finally almost relax as I mow the lawn with a new push mower. This opened up a new passion that I could share with my dad, as my hate for my lawns subsided and my appreciation for gardening skyrocketed.

Now that I had years of experience hoeing around my garden, and cleaning up my houses outside presentation I felt the urge to become a gardener. To bring life into the world with my own two hands and to take care of these tiny plants until they grow taller than I.

As the grandson of a Colombian farmer, the work almost came naturally to me as I planted a row of corn for the first time on May 13th, 2018, mother's day, I felt proud of what was to come in my first iteration of a vegetable garden. Now my plants have grown more than I could have ever imagined and the time to harvest the fruits of my efforts grow near and honestly I couldn't be more proud.

Now a message to those who hated gardening as much as I did growing up. Having a green thumb isn't about innate ability. It's about patience, serenity, and wanting to grow something from this beautiful green earth.