Editing in Real Life

I've been editing my second book, a girl meets genealogy and stirs up some ghosts of her families past, it's a fun story and I enjoy re-running certain points in my head because they're entertaining, but editing.....I hate editing.  It points out that I wasn't good enough to get it right in the first draft.  Not that anyone really does, I know, but that is the goal that I strive for.  And true to form, I will find anything else to do other than editing, like, I dunno Blogging perhaps? hehe  As I was driving around town today, looking at antique shops for a cool cane for my Mom and a nice poison cabinet for when I start making poisons (whole other long story, they aren't for human use or animal use either, I've not found any Borgia in my blood-line...)  I was looking at editing from a whole-life perspective instead of just as a tiresome job to do after writing. 

How often do we find ourselves like bonsai trees, edited to an ascetically consumable standard.  We grow, push our roots out further and as soon as we start to show growth we clip ourselves back into shape, never allowed to really wiggle our roots in a loamy soil.  We bend and clamp ourselves into different positions until we can do nothing else.  Yes, we're beautiful, but are we happy?  Everyone is confined to their dishes, be it large or small, and though we see the trees in the wild and even envy them at times, but no one would trade their cozy, warm, manicured life for the opportunity to grow big and tall and then shot down by lightning or rotted out by mold. 

How much editing is needed though?  I mean seriously, how much should we keep and how much should we redact from our every day life to 'fit in' or to be loved?  I guess it comes down to what kind of bonsai you are.  If you are a palm, a ficus or maple tree and what ever other kind of bonsais there are out there.  I like the tree I picked for this piece, it shows the seasons, it changes every few months.  I'd like to believe that my personal editing makes way for new growth without out-growing my roots or pot I have to grow in this life.  Both humble and proud, showy and coy, stalwart and flaky in one big bottomed bowl. Yea, that's me!