Acceptance

Acceptance

I stopped arguing with the shape of my days.

Stopped asking why some doors

never learned how to open for me.

Acceptance came quietly—

not as relief,

but as a hand resting on my back

when I finally sat down.

It didn’t take the ache away.

It taught the ache where it was allowed to live.

Showed me how grief can coexist with laughter

without needing to explain itself.

I accepted that some answers

will never introduce themselves.

That love sometimes stays

and sometimes leaves fingerprints instead.

I accepted the timing of my becoming—

late by some standards,

right on time for my soul.

I no longer confuse acceptance with approval.

I can see what was

without agreeing it should have been.

This is what acceptance looks like now:

not closing the book,

not forgiving the ink—

but turning the page

without tearing it out.

I am still here.

Still choosing.

Still breathing forward.

And somehow,

that is enough.

— Flower InBloom

Dedication

For every part of me that learned to stay,

for what survived without being understood,

for the becoming that didn’t need permission—

for myself, exactly as I am,

and for you, exactly where you stand.

— Flower InBloom