Flowers

It’s apparently still a compliment for someone to tell a woman “she’s as delicate as a flower.” But being a delicate flower sucks. Flowers get stepped on. Pesky children rip off their petals. If they are those fancy store flowers, they depend on incompetent humans to keep them alive. Being delicate can be pretty terrible. Unfortunately, I did not realize this until my mid-twenties, after years of allowing myself to be a delicate flower. Also unfortunately, I have not been a delicate flower because I constantly smell amazing (though I try). I’ve been a flower because I’ve needed other people to constantly water me. I’ve let people select me and place me where they want me in their lives. I’ve let people tear off my petals until they’ve gathered enough to make them happy and leave me a mess.

I’m so tired of being a flower. I won’t change overnight, but I would like to attempt to transform into a more independent human being. Independent flower with indestructible petals would be fine too. In order to make this plant-to-human metamorphosis, I think I need to put more energy into myself. Photosynthesize this shit. Do things I enjoy. Challenge myself. Be ok being alone. It’s not that I want to become less caring; I just want to consider myself one of the people I care about most. I know that I will still crave meaningful connections, but I can hopefully respect myself enough to not feel torn apart when the man children and red flags don’t work out. At the end of the day, I always have me to hang out with. And I’m a fairly bright and talented flower child.

In other news, I would like for us to live in a world where women aren’t “delicate” like flowers but rather resourceful like flowers and badass like my roommate’s flower tattoo. We will keep smelling good, but we will do so because we fucking want to smell good and not in some attempt to attract other humans incapable of enjoying their own scent. Ok. Now I’m done with this analogy.