The Dandelion Years

When I was younger, I loved roses.

They were elegant -- deliberate -- admired.
They looked like what beauty was supposed to be.

I loved them so much that I created versions of myself around flowers.
Annaree became SakuRee Bloom.
I filled pages and feeds with petals and poetry.
I collected quotes the way some people collect jewelry.
I merged flowers and words because they felt safe -- soft -- lovely.

Back then, life still felt arranged.

Later, I learned that my birth flowers were cosmos and marigolds.
Wildflowers.
Simple.
Unpretentious.
Growing wherever they were planted, without ceremony.

I did not think much of that then.

Time passed.

Life became heavier.

You cannot return to childhood once the weight of adulthood settles into your bones.
You cannot rewind the clock to when beauty was uncomplicated.

When I came to New Jersey and witnessed my first true Spring, I noticed something that surprised me --

Dandelions.

They were everywhere.

Not in curated gardens.
Not in bouquets.
Not chosen.

Just there.

Bright yellow against grass that had barely recovered from winter.
Standing up without permission.
Unapologetic.

And something in me shifted.

Because I began to see myself in them.

Dandelions are not roses.
They are not revered.
They are not preserved in crystal vases.

They bloom anyway.

Fresh -- they are little suns scattered across the ground.
Later -- they dry into fragile white spheres.
Feathery. Delicate. Temporary.

You blow on them.
Make a wish.
Watch them scatter.

There is something beautiful about that.
And something unbearably sad.

You do not know where they land.
You do not know if they grow.
You do not know if they disappear into nothing.

You only know they let go.

Right now, my life feels like the dandelion stage after the bloom.

I bloomed once.
I loved fiercely.
I built a home.
I raised children with everything I had.

And now I feel like I have been blown into the wind.

My children do not speak to me.
I still do not understand why the distance feels so final.
I replay conversations in my mind the way wind replays across empty fields.

Was I too much?
Was I not enough?
Was leaving a marriage the unforgivable act?

Sometimes I feel like I have been uprooted -- scattered -- left to land wherever the wind decides.

And yet.

Dandelions do not ask for approval before they grow.

They do not apologize for blooming in inconvenient places.

They grow in cracks.
They grow in forgotten corners.
They grow where nothing else tries.

The poem “God’s Bouquet” says to bloom where you are planted.

I used to read that as something gentle.

Now I read it as something defiant.

Bloom -- even here.
Bloom -- even if the soil is hard.
Bloom -- even if you were not chosen.

I wish I could be that hardy.

I wish I could look at my circumstances -- the silence from my children, the unanswered questions, the ache in my chest -- and simply grow anyway.

Maybe that is what this season is.

Not rose season.
Not curated garden season.

Dandelion season.

A season where I learn to find beauty in survival.

A season where I stop measuring myself against perfection and begin honoring resilience.

Because dandelions are not lesser flowers.

They are proof that life continues.

Even after winter.
Even after being cut down.
Even after being called unwanted.

And maybe, just maybe, being blown into the wind is not the end of the story.

Maybe it is scattering seeds into places I cannot yet see.

I do not know where my children will land in their understanding of me.
I do not know if they will ever see the years of love as clearly as I lived them.

But I know this --

I bloomed once.

I can bloom again.

And even if I am only a wildflower in someone else’s field,
I am still part of God’s bouquet.