bloom where you are planted

i am a wanderer by nature.
a nomad perhaps.
i am in love with places i have never seen,
and i am in love with people i have never met.
for those reasons alone i find it unbearable to stop in one place.
the thought of settling in ONE place FOREVER,
no matter how endearing the place,
is enough to drive me mad.
i began my first excursion almost 15 years ago.
and i'm still here.
can hardly admit that i haven't even wandered far within this place.
about 3-4 years ago i began to be strangled by this reality.
almost suffocated to death to be exact.
part of my soul began shriveling up.
i was beginning to lose a part of myself i deeply valued.
a friend unknowingly threw me a line as i was rapidly sinking to a bottom that i did not know.
"bloom where you are planted."
that is what she said.
the message echoed in my mind constantly.
bloom where you are planted.
bloom where you are planted.
i am not one to take a personal development challenge lightly.
i decided that somehow i would bloom even though i could feel nothing but shriveling.
so, my first step was to make a pillow.
i could have made anything;
i just needed a constant, visual reminder.
i stared at that pillow often,
hoping it would whisper a formula that could help me bloom.
or better yet just make me bloom.
all the staring didn't change me,
but i did begin to come up with a strategy that did.
embrace.
that was all i was going to do.
there were things that brought me here in the first place that i had neglected to remember.
i had exhausted those reasons,
and i no longer longed for the things that brought me here.
but i was here,
to my dismay or not,
so i was going to bloom by finding new things to embrace.
that is exactly what i did.
i found things to love.
i stretched.
i met new people.
i connected with people in a way i had not expected to do here.
i took up new interests.
i got involved in sam's school.
i started seeing my mountains differently.
i began to be present in my job, my family, and my life.
i abandoned the parts of this place that were beginning to exhaust me.
and, i began to bloom.
i blossomed.
i stopped focusing so much on the places i longed to be,
and i just stayed rooted here.
that was my only real choice considering my circumstances.
a couple of years have passed.
i have since made a pillow for my friend who gave me the advice.
she was moving to new york city and was afraid about blooming there.
i eventually stopped salivating at her opportunity,
and i can say i bloomed.
i got rid of my pillow today.
as you can clearly see it has been well used.
i have gone through many seasons of blooming, withering, and blooming again.
perhaps i'm even withering a bit now.
i know the blossom will inevitably come again.
i'm just hoping i have the chance to bloom on the coast someday or bloom in countries far from the only one i've ever known,
and i wouldn't complain about a blossom on the east coast either.
sigh.