Flowers That Couldn’t Bloom

I stared at the world around me the laughter, the noise, the effortless rhythm of people who seemed to know how to live and wondered if I was the one at fault, or if it was the world itself that was broken.

Years have passed, yet I feel untouched by time. My knowledge has aged, but my heart remains the same still timid, still uncertain, still questioning whether I was meant to bloom at all. Growth feels like something that happens to other people. I see them changing, evolving, expanding into versions of themselves that seem radiant and whole. And then there’s me standing still, as if rooted in soil too dry to nurture anything alive.

What is change, really? Is it something we feel all at once a moment of clarity, a transformation? Or is it the quiet, invisible kind that creeps in slowly, until one day you look in the mirror and realize you’ve become someone you no longer recognize? I wonder which version will happen to me. I wonder if I’ll even notice when it does.

I lived silently. My words were heavy, each one carrying the weight of a thousand unsaid truths. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to speak it was that I never felt safe enough to. The walls around me were built not of bricks, but of expectations. A single wrong word could echo for days. A small mistake wasn’t just a lesson; it was a storm waiting to happen.

Maybe I was always wrong. Maybe that’s how I learned to shrink to fold myself small enough to avoid the thunder. If I had been given the grace of mistakes, maybe I would’ve learned how to live without fear. Maybe I would’ve learned that life isn’t meant to be perfect, only real.

There’s a certain loneliness in being the flower that couldn’t bloom. You watch others unfurl effortlessly in the sunlight petals wide open, faces tilted upward while you remain closed, protecting something fragile inside that never sees the light. I used to think that made me weak. Now I think maybe I was just waiting for the right season.

Because maybe it wasn’t that I couldn’t bloom. Maybe I just needed different soil a softer kind, one that understood that some flowers take longer to find the sun.

I asked the soil, “Why is it that you don’t let me bloom? I have spent so much time here. Is this a case of jail is just a room?”

The soil replied, “Funny how you rush everything. It’s still not the time for you. You will do great keep watching the moon someday you will bloom,” it said.

So I sat and waited another year or two.

“What about now? I’m still not able to move.”

I saw a dog playing with its owner. “I want a friend too,” I said. “Soil, tell me what to do.”

“It’s not your time yet,” it replied.

Growing impatient with the same answer, I kept asking. The tone of my voice changed anger began to rise. Eventually, I stopped asking questions. Not just for now, but in general. I spoke less.

Would I be met with anger again? I had no clue.

It took years decades, even for the Titan Arum to grow. Hidden beneath the soil, it gathered strength in silence, unseen and misunderstood. While the world around it bloomed and withered countless times, it remained still. Waiting. Becoming.

I used to think that kind of waiting was weakness that stillness meant nothing was happening. But beneath the surface, the Arum was preparing. Its roots were weaving stories of endurance, its heart collecting the courage to rise.

Yet when it finally bloomed, it did not smell of sweetness or joy. It smelled of death of everything it had held inside for too long. The anger, the pain, the resentment of waiting it had all turned the flower into something haunting. A reminder that growth without peace can rot from within.

That’s the tragedy of impatience it can turn even beauty into decay.

The Titan Arum teaches that patience isn’t just about waiting; it’s about how you wait. You can spend years growing in anger, or years growing in grace. Both will bloom eventually but only one will bear a fragrance worth remembering.