about late bloomers.
Recently I had a conversation with a friend who passed a landmark birthday a year ago. It just hit her. While we spoke she kept calling herself a “late bloomer.” Listening to my friend talk is when it hit me . . . I really don’t like that euphemism “late bloomer.”
In all of the years that I gardened, even when I needed two truckloads of bark mulch every summer, I never once heard anyone refer to a flower as a “late bloomer.” Flowers bloom when they’re meant to. Some show before the snow melts. Some come in early spring, some in mid-summer. Some are fall visitors. When I moved to a new home, what had been a spring flower became winter color.
Who’s a late bloomer? What are we late for? I’m not catching up to anything. I’m growing at exactly the rate I know how to, and I keep on growing. Everyone I know doing much the same thing. We’re tall, short, and uniquely beautiful. Each of us adds our own splash of changing color.
How boring if we were predictable! Flowers don’t bloom all at once or for each other. They bloom when they’re meant to. Some bloom once. Some are perennial.
We’re not late bloomers . . . but always blooming.
