I have never been the type of girl that liked flowers. To me they were always over used and underappreciated. I didn’t have a need for them. But last year my grandmother took me down to black creek and listened to the water flow by and I saw a pink Lotus. It was the first flower that I had ever seen that made me feel something. I felt at peace. Before we left I plucked it from the water and took it home with me. I let it dry out and kept it in a jar on my dresser.
After awhile of waking up to it every morning I started to become curious of its meaning. I learned that the lotus represented being at peace in muddy waters. Those few words sparked something in me.
I had always been the most negative, cynical person in the room, never giving anything a chance to work out. I was tired of feeling that way but I didn’t know how to separate myself from that familiar, warm lifestyle but that flower and its secret meaning showed me that there could be beauty in the murky as long as you could be at ease with your surroundings.
I began to carry that meaning around with me everywhere I went. I let that entire philosophy tangle its way into my life because I had nothing left to lose if it didn’t work out. That was the best decision I ever made. Ever since then I’ve taught myself to breathe before stressing, listen before speaking. I’ve taught myself to accept things as they come and look at things in the brightest light possible. I’ve changed so much in the best year and all my changes have been for the better all because of one simple dried up flower.
-Anna Dominguez, Junior Poetry Editor