dandelions
I realized while moving through my house that I know where every creak in my floor is. There’s a creak to the right of my bedroom door, and another in the second to last stair. It’s the first house where I’ve memorized where not to step.
I have built a home and life in a city that I am not originally from, yet I call this my hometown. I lived in a small town in the Midwest till I was nine, and moved to a big town in the South till eighteen. From fifth grade to graduation, I will have spent exactly half of my life in this town.
For my AP Art class, you have to choose a topic to create 15 pieces for. This year I chose how moving across country at a young age affects identity. I don’t consider myself Texan, yet if I move back to Iowa I wouldn’t be entirely Iowan either. So where am I really from?
I have a wicked accent, a love for corn, and roots in two places. And I’ve come to realize that’s okay. For ages I felt like I needed to answer the question of where I was built, but in reality I was built by different people in different areas; making me, me.
Someone once gave me an amazing gift that said “bloom where your seeds are planted.” It now hangs on my wall to see everyday. For a while I felt like I didn’t truly bloom where I was planted; rather where my petals blew in the wind like a dandelion.
To protect themselves, dandelions blow seeds in a different direction to bloom elsewhere. Even though I was first planted in the cold, I never bloomed; only turning into a fuzzy puff ready to wilt. To find a better place to bloom, I used the new weather to find a new home where the yellow petals could shine. And they did.
I love my “old” hometown. I was surrounded by family that lived only one or two hours away, and actually had seasons. My old hometown consisted of 3,200 people, and my class size was around 40 kids. I loved my house and playing in the snow with my dog. I would walk down to the creek close to my house every so often, and would go up into the woods into my hut made of tree branches to read. I loved my old hometown; yet I wasn’t happy. My school system wasn’t the greatest, and what was offered was not what I needed. When my dad got a job offer on the other side of the country, I was excited yet scared for change. I started my fifth grade in a new school with my class size being 300 kids instead of 40. My new town had a population of 139,000 and a crazy art and music presence. I was loved by my new classmates and made life long friends instantly. I started playing in orchestra and drawing more often, which soon both developed in ways I never imagined by the support system of teachers.
I love where I am now, and I love where I am from, yet I know where I am from is not where I am meant to be. This applies to many different circumstances. You could love a job but know you have to move on to fully use your potential. It could be a relationship, and friendship, or even a car. All in all, it’s okay to not feel like where you are is where your seeds were planted. Roots can grow for miles, seeds can blow with the wind, and you can find your place.
