Let’s Let The Flower Grow

Yellow Calla lilies are my favorite flower.

Bloom. “To come into full beauty and health; to flourish” – I like to accompany the word bloom with blossom which I will define as “to mature and develop in a promising and healthy way”. These two words have had big meaning in my life and happen to go well with my name. I’m going to focus more on blossom than bloom in this posting. When we mature that means that we have had experiences and have been though different areas of life that give us a broader perspective and understanding on a certain subject. We are more knowledgable on how to handle situations.

I must admit, within the past year, when it comes to something that I want to do and other people tell me it would be smarter to do otherwise, I usually end up doing what I want to do and live with the consequences. Growing up, I was given a lot of direction and if I didn’t follow that direction, I was in the wrong, at least I felt that way (not just by my family but to other adults who took me under their wing). I only took direction from the ones I trusted and confided in and I held their opinion so high that it had to be the right way to do things and the way I was thinking of going about it was certainly wrong. It didn’t help that I was really weak when it came to having people be upset with me. It would bring me down so much if someone was mad/upset at me that I would not be happy until things were settled between that person and I. This made me very much so into a robot. Being told what to do, believing that was the best for me (even if I felt otherwise), and doing it. I couldn’t think for myself and when I did I had to check with EVERYBODY (I trusted) to make sure I was doing things the “right” way. Not until college did I begin to feel the heavy load I was carrying on my back to please everyone.

I’m not going to get into all the details because you would be reading for a really long time, so I will spare you, but it did take me about a year to start making decisions for myself even when those I trusted thought differently. I’ve had to deal with the people I care about the most being upset with me while I go on making the decision that I think is right. Sometimes it turned out great, other times I just learned a lesson. But I realized that I needed to learn those lessons so that I could blossom, so that I could bloom. I couldn’t become my own person until I started making decisions for myself, whether they were smart or not.

I’m finding there is a good balance of taking into consideration the opinions of those who know you well and my own opinion. Sometimes they match and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they give a different perspective while other times they don’t help at all. It’s all part of the process. I also confidently know that when the ones I love give their opinion, they are trying to help, not to hurt (wish I knew how to see that back in the day). As of now, I am still learning. I still like to make the decisions I want and live with the consequence but a part of me knows that’s not the way to go about it. Sometimes I tire of doing the “right” thing – or doing what seems right in the eyes of others. I feel like that’s all I did growing up, and now I am going on the complete opposite side of the scale because I’m tired of caring. But deep down I know what it takes to mature and develop, to blossom and bloom – but I want to want to make those decisions, the ones that have my best interest at heart whether it be what I want or it be something I don’t want. It takes time for the lilies to bloom and the roses to blossom and until it’s time – they weather the storm.

Click this word Bloom to listen to the song that got me through a lot of my hard days.

Daisy update: She’s eating a lot more now – which makes me happy because she is too skinny. She also ripped up my sister’s slippers and took all the fuzz out of them and I now find them all over the house.