One petal at a time

I like to think of childhood as the time when children slowly bloom one petal at a time.  Discovering who they are and all the wonderful parts of them hidden deep within.

My real memories of childhood though were more like that of a morning glory, closing up and hiding away as time pressed on and evening approached.

Each step along the way seemed to reveal more and more imperfections.

I wasn’t sure if other people discovered the same thing, or if I was particularly flawed, but I knew I worried about my flaws and I tried even harder to be “perfect.”

Where these feelings came from I will never know.  Perhaps they were just the result of an overly sensitive child trying to be the way she perceived the world from her childish viewpoint.  Perhaps they were given to her by the world around her.

I’ve spent the rest of my life trying to unfold all those petals, looking under each one to see if there is something worth redeeming.