“Do you suppose she’s a wildflower?”– Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
When you think about it, some of the most beautiful flowers are wild. For those of you who have never felt like part of the mainstreamed gardens of life, I hope you’ll embrace the wildflower that you are. I hope you’ll walk on strong stems and wear your petals however you please. But most of all, I hope you’ll continue to grow even after you leave the gardens you call home for the vaster landscape of your future.
There is something to be said of the kind of people who do not care what others think about them. I wish I could say I have always been one those people, but that is not true. In my past, there were weeds who tried to weaken me, friends I lost, and heartbreaks that are still with me. I endured high school in a time when cyberbullying was just beginning to taint our adolescent gardens as only the worst of pesticides can. But I grew from the person I was in high school, and through this process, I realized that it was okay to be different.
It is okay to be a wildflower.
Looking back now, I wish I’d been more comfortable being that wildflower. I wish I would’ve felt more at ease being that person I was because she was pretty great. When I say I outgrew that garden, I don’t mean to say that I outgrew myself. If anything, I became the person I was always supposed to be. And sure, that person is still a wildflower with roots that feel stronger in solitude and feel more serene without people picking away at my petals or cutting down my stems, but not even that would matter. Once you decide you’re okay with yourself, it doesn’t matter if people suppose you are a wildflower or not because it makes no difference either way.
Now, I’m not sure if any of those “perfect”-petaled people I knew in high school are reading this now. I don’t know the places they’ve been planted or the kind of lives they’ve grown into since those days in our small town. Most days I don’t think too much about the way they plucked me from their garden and discarded me amongst the other weeds. Then, there are times in which I wish to thank them for helping me discover the wildflower that succeeded in growing up and growing out of that insecure yellow dandelion and into that softened soul with wishes within.
Thank you.
So when you’re tending your gardens and admiring the beauty of the flowers therein, look instead to that single yellow wildflower growing in the woods, and smile at its strength amongst last year’s faded foliage and this year’s new beginnings. Know that you can be just as strong as that wildflower as long as you believe.