From the book ‘The Sun and her Flowers’ by Rupi Kaur
The well-known writer, Rupi Kaur, published her book, ‘the sun and her flowers’ again, spreading awareness of how self-love and the importance of investing time in ourselves for human growth and development. For Rupi, writing is a way where she can take a moment to listen to her soul and voice and respond in a kindly way, assuring her that it is not only her who may, at some point, feel a kind of way. Through her adolescence experiences, she was able to inspire people including myself to find our voice. Her words have touched many young individuals who are left feeling isolated from the world due to their misunderstanding of how to cope with reality.
This poem depicts a strong representation of how life will go on no matter what is going on around you, even if all you want at that moment is for life to pause and be alone to thoroughly understand what has happened and how to react to it. We shouldn’t limit ourselves to how much we can endure, in fear of not making it to the end; because as life pushes us we become stronger and if you are able to push yourself- you will survive. At the end, things might work out for us and even if they don’t- through the hustle of trying to get a grip of ourselves, life will give us a new perspective on the way we think about a particular experience. Once we overcome uncomfortable experiences we come back stronger than ever with more knowledge and strength integrated into us. After an individual is struck by reality, self abandonment is the key to heal and grow resulting in an individual to realize that they will never reach their fullest potential; their potential will keep on evolving.
Young flowerheads are most likely facing the sun, when they bloom, they face east. I like to think of myself as a young sunflower. I haven’t completely lost my innocence that I always had as a young child but I do believe that some of my innocence has been replaced with fear. Fear of being alone, left behind, not cared for and most importantly denial. I know a lot of people including myself who don’t take denial well. Denial as in feeling like i’m not enough and I have qualities that I lack. That is what I am scared of, giving my all to people who can replace me without any hesitation. Because the people that allow you to be so happy are the same people who are preparing to take something from you. I am scared of giving it my all, seeing the potential of who they can be and sticking by them through better or worse even if that means putting myself out their and unknowingly giving them the permission to take my love and my spirit for granted.
And once you realize that, why is that not a good enough reason to leave them? Why does it feel like everything you have ever believed in is not true? How do you differentiate between real and fake. Why did this happen so soon? What happened all of a sudden?
What signs did I not recognize? What qualities do I lack?
How come I couldn’t make you happy? What don’t I have that she has?
And at that moment I convinced myself that each and everything in my world was you, nothing else mattered.
I was wrong for that- wrong for believing that everything that happened between us was because of me. I don’t compare myself with her anymore because one year of isolation, one year of forcing myself to get up each morning- struggling to keep breathing was hard and I believe after a couple months I had adjusted to that lifestyle with no hope in myself to get back on my feet and see anything worth of my existence.
But I kept pushing myself no matter how badly I wanted life to pause so I wouldn’t have to feel alone in my thoughts or how badly I wanted time to stop so I can thoroughly understand my feelings in order to overcome them.
And I am thankful for not settling with that kind of mindset because I have learnt so much about love, support and what it really means when people say that you will get through rough moments. I am thankful that there was no pause in my life because of you. Having life go on forced me, whether or not I liked it, to keep pushing. And with patience and time I realized my worth and began learning that there is a reason behind everything and that even though peoples reasoning may hurt us, we must not limit ourselves. Most importantly, I realized that along with me, there are similar people in the world who don’t have the love they need, making them act in a way that may hurt others around them. And with time I realized that, that is okay. I allowed time to guide me through the process of forgiveness.
You did not hurt me because I let you take me for granted. You hurt me because it was you who didn’t know how to love. And maybe you’ve never experienced something so real, which made you so afraid of commitment. So I hope one day you do love something with so much passion because even if it doesn’t work out in the end, you will experience the gift of wanting more for someone than they want for themselves. Being loved comes and goes in life but having the first hand experience of loving is only for the few of us.
We don’t have the slightest clue of how strong we are and what we are capable of. We will get through life without reaching our fullest potential because there’s no limit to our greatness. And that is why we should never limit ourselves to the amount of happiness, sadness, love or hate we can endure. When we are left with the only option of remaining strong, we fight and maybe we never really stop fighting in our lifetime but there is beauty in our fight.
Because our comeback from hitting rock bottom outweighs the negative influence.
And I believe that even a small amount of happiness can outweigh any amount of sadness because the only thing that can save us, when we can’t save ourselves, is love.
I don’t stop here. I will bloom and even when it is dark outside I will continue to find the sunlight.
