Flowers have always been one of my favorite things in the world. They are the perfect gift for any occasion; they are the perfect way to brighten anyone’s day; they are the perfect inspiration. Most people would say that they have some sort of spirit animal. A honey badger, a panda bear, or even a cheetah. But, for me, I do not have an animal that I use as a representation of the traits, skills, and type of person that I hope to be. Instead, I use a flower. Maybe it’s small, maybe it’s delicate, but this flower is one that truly does know how to weather a storm. It’s a wildflower.

By definition, a wildflower is a flower that grows freely, resiliently, and beautifully. Wildflowers find themselves growing anywhere. They grow in the most unlikely of places, even in the darkest of night. They find any cracks and crevices that will allow them to sprout up, and they do just that. They grow despite everyone’s belief that they never would. They allow the rain to heal them, not drench them.

In this day and age, it’s deemed right or acceptable to have a cold heart… shut off from the rest of the world. The thought is that if we don’t wear our hearts on our sleeves then we can never get hurt, but, the reality is that if you turn your heart to stone, then you will be hurting yourself even more. So, allow yourself to feel… Have those feelings whether you are young and eighteen or old and eighty-one. Be vulnerable. Open your heart to all the possibilities that this life has to offer your gentle soul.

If there were a single quote that I could choose to define my life, it would be this, “Just like flowers are stepped on after they are stepped on—so will I.” There is no better way to describe the wildflower. I think that there’s something inspiring about being able to pull yourself back up when you find yourself face down towards the ground. There’s something beautiful about pouring your heart out into something, filling the world with love, in the purest of ways. There’s something awestriking about how words simply fall from your lips, with no rhyme or reason, but it’s so raw and real. A lot of times, vulnerability is equated to words like "weakness," but I don’t believe that to be the case at all.

Nothing in life blooms all year, so you can’t expect yourself to do the same. So, I hope that you are blessed with the gift of having a heart like a wildflower because it is one of the rarest gifts of all, but one that is needed much more in the world.