Extraordinarily Ordinary

My name means flower. But if I was a flower, what a twisted vine I’d be.

I was grown in bitterness, named out of spite, nurtured, and cultivated in a place that shone in beauty and brilliance but rooted itself in the most toxic pit of judgment and intolerance.

I have come to see that many of the influences that have made me who I am were so wrong and disgusting behind their glossy leaves and vibrant blooms. The beautiful garden I had known was full of creatures of the most dangerous variety.

I don’t want to be a toxic person, but toxicity is all that I have known.

I grew up with nasty commentary on the way a passerby was dressed, with people who ridiculed others for their culture and shamed and devalued individuals for their weight. And in all of it, no one ever thought they were doing anything wrong.

How do you grow, so far into your development, to be better than your predecessors? Your peers?

Sprouting in a garden such as this I know and feel that I share these toxic traits; that my conditioned impulses are often cruel and critical. I lament this, and desire change. I am not immune to the poison either; the root of my most damaging behavior is my insecurity, which is the natural byproduct of picking apart every person you come into contact with. You cannot tear the world apart and come out the other end whole.

I desire now, more than anything, to learn to be a supportive and uplifting presence. To be someone who sees the beauty in others and elevates that rather than criticizing any attribute or decision that I would not inherently take on my own.

If I am a flower, I wish to uproot. To be carried by the wind to find healthier soil, a new garden where the core of development is not the decomposing remains of other flowers, shredded by beauty standards, racial bias, or judgment. I want to be deserving to find a place where I may grow in love for others, and joy in their individuality.

This is my resolution. A quiet whisper to myself to find my foundation in a place more healthy and to change my own mind so that I may bloom.