Blossoming..

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. Anais Nin

I am in a pattern of learning, growing, and blossoming. I have heard this quote so many times, and have always loved it. But it’s especially meaningful to me right now. The past five weeks have been incredible. Really the past six months have been incredible. But it’s all starting to happen now. Change is happening now. I can’t quite figure out if I have been preparing for this change for the past few months, or if I am only now ready to see it. Or, I wonder, if maybe it’s just really happening now because I finally believe in myself enough to let it happen.

I love how Nin said, “and the day came..” It indicates that somehow prior to that moment, it wasn’t possible. Or maybe that prior to that day, or that instance, or that opportunity.. And the day came. It’s perfect. There’s a resolution to it, relief. Somehow, the wait is over. Beautifully resolving. We’re all waiting for that day, aren’t we? I used to wonder if I had missed that day. I don’t think that anymore.

Change takes place on so many levels. I believe life is always changing us. We are constantly blooming, growing, getting pruned back. If we are honest with ourselves, we can easily see these patterns, even if they’re painful. But there’s risk in real growth. The natural patterns of life force us to grow to a certain extent. Natural aging, change, and life lead us through the ebb and flow of growth. But there is growth – blossoming, even, beyond that.

Nin goes on to talk about risk. Ultimately implying that the risk to stay the same was more painful than the risk to blossom.. grow, change, bloom. I think many of us have a hard time associating change with risk. As if somehow it’s a choice. I don’t honestly always think change is a choice. In fact more often than not, I believe change takes its own shape in our lives. But I think what Nin was referring to here is a conscious change. A deep, personal, intimate change. Change that revolves around singular choices with decidedly opposite results. It is those very changes that matter. And it is those changes that we so often run from. Change, choice, risk.. To the extent that we allow change to affect us, to the extent that we make choices that forever alter the landscape of our futures, to the extent that we learn to risk; it is there that we find true blossoming. True growth.

I fight back the urge to shake my fist in the air at the past.  I become angry at somehow not being able to understand this before.  Why now? Why here?  Why, at age 29, do I find more clarity, direction, purpose, vision, and hope than I ever have? Why?  It certainly doesn’t make sense.  It doesn’t add up.  But then again, neither does the way a flower blooms in the desert.  It just happens.  This beautiful unfurling.  Blossoming, out of my old self, and into a beautiful flower.