“I declare that I will bloom where I am planted”

This is currently one of my favourite affirmations to recite and meditate upon first thing in the morning. It’s top of the list of the five mantras I recite before I get out of bed, shower, catch up on Whatsapp messages or feel the temptation to hit the snooze button.

On days when I’m not feeling particularly psyched about what the day holds – the mornings are hard for me – I can recite this affirmation no less than ten times. Because, let’s face it, blooming is hard business when you aren’t in the mood.

I was once gifted a gorgeous looking cactus whom I named “Horatio” after poor Hamlet’s bestie and my favourite character on CSI: Miami. Now back then I didn’t have the best track record in keeping pretty things with leaves alive, sadly, I’d failed to inherit my mother’s green-fingers gene. So fearful that Horatio would meet a similar end to his many (many) predecessors, I became the equivalent of a helicopter parent…for my cactus.

Yes, yes. Get all your laughing out of the way now *side eye*

Lots of time was spent, by yours truly, online researching what were ideal conditions for cacti to survive and thrive in. At some point, I took to moving around the house with Horatio to keep an eye on him and monitor all his developments. My loved ones weren’t particularly pleased to find Horatio perched just nje on their favourite chair or cropping up in places cacti aren’t really supposed to be in. Suffice to say, it was only a matter of time before a “Cactus Intervention” was conducted and I was told to “just chill”.

I went from daily check-ins, to weekly check-ins until I realised it had been a full month since I’d neurotically hovered over my cactus. So imagine my surprise when upon paying Horatio a visit I discovered that he had made a grandmother out of me! Two identical, delicate looking cacti shrubs sprouted out of his pot and like a good Ambuya/Nana I promptly named them Rosencrantz & Guildenstern (see what I did there, lol).

The running joke in my home for a week was that I had a text-book rebellious “child” who had got knocked up after their first taste of freedom after escaping from my suffocating clutches – ha ha, good one *not amused look*.

Instead, what I took away was that blooming is hard work when you are constantly being monitored, measured and watched.

Very little can grow and thrive under constant scrutiny, and that includes cacti and humans a like. We spend a lot of time overthinking whether we are in the right place, doing the right things, with the right people and living up to our potential. If we’re not doing that, then we’re preempting what comes next and strategising all the best ways to deal with whatever future scenarios that may or may not come our way.

Right now, I’m in a space in my life where I’m trying to make the most of where I’m planted. I regularly remind myself that conditions don’t have to be perfect or fit my exacting standards for great and wonderful things to transpire. Sometimes I do forget and go from “blooming” to “blooming heck” real quick…and that’s okay, just as long as I don’t entertain the latter for longer than is healthy.

So when I think about what it means to bloom and thrive, I think of my darling Horatio (who’s still alive, by the by) who didn’t pay anybody any mind and did his own thing (which apparently is reproducing asexually) and couldn’t be happier. When left alone, far from my hovering watchful eye he bloomed quite beautifully.

So right now, repeat after me out loud from your desk at work or your train back home or whilst sitting on the bog (no judgement):

“I declare that I will bloom where I am planted”

Happy Monday, chickens!

V x

Image Source 1
Image Source 2