Hello and Farewell, my Pretty

Forsythia. The first sign of Spring around here. I absolutely love it! Those bright yellow blossoms find their way here before the daffodils even show up.
I suspect the pretty little things are more than a bit offended by the weekly visits from Old Man Winter that we're getting lately.
My friend, Paula, gave me this forsythia when we first moved into this house 15 years ago. It started out in another location but didn't do well there at all so we moved it here to the front flower bed.
And it did pretty well for a little while.
The past few years have been a little disappointing as far as blossoms go.
I NEED this shot of sunny yellow to come out of the winter doldrums. So I've been doing some research to figure out how we can help it thrive. What I have discovered is that we have been doing pretty much everything wrong when it comes to nurturing this shrub. LOL All those longer branches should be HEAVY with blossom by now except that we kept trimming the poor thing, trying to make it conform to our own ideal size and shape, and caused it to just be sad and spindly.
So, as hard as it will be, here's what we have to do now. When all these blossom are gone, we have to cut the entire thing down right to the ground. Oh how painful that is going to be for me. (I'm a little scared. Can someone hold me?) After we cut it completely down, it will shoot up some new branches. Supposedly they will grow very quickly and begin the task of learning to bloom again. Which will take two to three YEARS!!! Ack!
I suppose it's a metaphor for so many things in life. Sometimes you have to make some big, hard cuts and then just wait patiently and have faith that things will come out better in the end.
I hate that about life.
And I'll miss these sunny yellow blossoms announcing Spring for the next couple of years.
But I have faith.
*Thanks for not noticing the pathetic state of the flower bed. I have big plans for that this year. Stay tuned. ;)