Day Sixty-Two – Single Flowers Bloom Too
I am awake, I am alive, as I embrace a simple truth … a single flower still blooms.
Yes, it seems that even in isolation, great things can happen, amazing things can be accomplished, and surprises are even more appreciated.
Case in point – I was the young girl totally intimidated by the successful. Although I was a straight-A student from my first day in school, through high school and into college, I just did not SEE myself as others did. My teachers saw a lawyer. My father saw a future Prime Minister … I saw someone scared stiff of failing. (In retrospect, I wish my parents had let me fail at something or a couple of somethings or many somethings, just so I knew how it felt. Just so I knew it wouldn’t kill me.)
But I never failed – if I entered a contest, I won it. If I wrote a paper, I got the highest mark. Until … dating. Like anyone else at that age, I had no idea what boys wanted or what made that girl prettier than me (I was just positive she was). So when someone liked me, I listed off all the reasons he was a great catch, using my intelligence to rationalize his drinking or drug use or or or …
Fast forward 12 years to the single Mom with two young kids and an abusive background, now even more convinced she was a failure. She was now even more intimidated by the “academics”, those that had REALLY gone to school, the people with their big words and a confidence she didn’t feel. They scared her, even as she envied every breath they took.
Fast forward again, this time a couple decades to the woman who types this message. I never became an academic but I finally grew to recognize my own wisdom and worth, earned in another type of educational structure. The woman I am today loves my flaws and my assets equally, for now I have learned to fail. And those academics – many are now within the group of people I call “friends”. They no longer scare me, nor do they intimidate me. I learn from them. They learn from me. As it should be.
And yesterday, the proof of just that relationship as a representative from Carleton University reached out to me to ask if they could use a segment from my former tv show “The Learning Curve” as part of their Collaborative Indigenous Learning Bundles (CILB) Project. I said “Yes” as the intimidated, scared woman of my past smiled from the soul.
Why the story? Because you my friend MUST KEEP PLANTING SEEDS. You have no idea when they are going to bloom but they WILL BLOOM because even in isolation, the sun still shines.
I love you! HUGSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Sandi