I spent the summer of 2020, when COVID was still in its vicious early stages, living with my aunt in rural Vermont. The task of tending to the vegetable garden was given to me.
I had to water the garden twice a day, but it became much easier when a broken water pipe was fixed, and the sprinkler reached all the way from the potatoes to the peas. This left me free to meander through the back fields for the half hour that the sprinklers did their thing, and I so enjoyed all the wildflowers— thin purple vetches that grow along the edges of the path, small daisies scattered among the tall grass, buttercups sprinkled here and there, white clouds of wild chervil floating above it all.
The year prior, I was meandering through the streets of Copenhagen instead. I loved to venture out early in the morning, before the rain and the crowds joined me. One morning, I wandered into the King’s Garden beside the castle. Enclosed by a low rock wall, rose bushes grew in small clusters separated by a paved path. Giant blooms of blushing orange, sunny yellow, and pure white adorned the thorny stems. I loved sticking my nose right up to the petals and inhaling the sweet fragrance. It was tranquil, peaceful, beautiful.
And yet. If I were a flower, I would much rather grow wild and free.
Sure, roses are universally adored, elegant and classy, pieces of perfection.
But wildflowers are free spirits, bright bursts of color blooming anywhere and everywhere, imperfectly perfect.
I’d much rather be a wildflower always reaching toward the sun, without a gardener’s shears cutting and controlling and shaping my destiny.
I’d much rather live the life I choose and not one given to me.
Stop growing in a garden.
So many gardeners in the world today. Parents and teachers, friends and colleagues, news stations and social media, all telling us what to do and how to be. We are practically put on a path since birth, carefully pruned to match the image of “success.”
Maybe, like me, you’re told you’re “too sensitive,” so you learn to hide your tears, or better yet, put up walls so thick that nothing can penetrate to the part of you that feels.
Maybe you get the message that you’re “not good enough.” You’re not smart enough or pretty enough. Your art isn’t good enough and neither are your athletic skills. Nothing about you is good enough, as a matter of fact.
Maybe you’re told what kind of degree to achieve, what kind of career to pursue, how much money to make. Maybe you’re told that without these accomplishments, you’re a failure. Or, at the very least, not worth someone’s time or admiration.
Maybe you’re told what sort of body to have, the size of your waist, the width of your thighs, the length of your hair.
Where to live. Who to love. How to fit in. The list goes on and on.
And then one day you look back at your life and realize… you didn’t live your life. You lived the life of someone else.
You lived the life of a rose, never realizing that the entire time you were growing in someone else’s garden, pruned by someone else’s shears.
No, thank you.
Start growing wild and free.
There is only one voice in the world to follow— your own. You, and you alone, are the only one that knows your true path. You are the only one who truly knows where happiness waits for you.
Grow there. Grow with wild abandon and complete freedom. Soak up all the sunshine and dance in the wind. Live the life you choose, the one you’re meant to live.
You are not here to make others happy. You are here to make yourself happy, and that’s not going to happen trapped in someone else’s garden.
Grow wild and free, my dear, and you will find the utter joy and glorious goodness that can only be found when we courageously and unapologetically claim our truth.
Hey there, fellow free spirit!
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