Somewhere along the way, most of us learned that blooming means growing. The bud opens, the stem reaches, the flower turns its face toward the light. It's a lovely picture, and it works beautifully in the good years.
The harder years ask for a different picture.
Wini found hers while living with cancer. She leads energy transition work across South East Asia, is a neurodivergent who casually paints, someone who dances in her living room and still logs on to see her old colleagues' faces on a screen. For most of her life, if you'd asked what blooming meant, she would have said growth, without a second thought.
Then the season changed.
"Blooming also means that I honor the season of life and what it asks of me. Probably the season that I am right now does not necessarily ask for growth. So blooming means accepting myself and accepting the change that comes with it every day. With the body that often times feels aching, with even the narrative identity that is changing right now."
The narrative identity that is changing. It's a quiet phrase, and anyone who has lived through a hard year will recognize it. The story you used to tell about yourself stops fitting. You were the capable one, the planner, the friend who always showed up. Then one day you're someone who needs to lie down in the afternoon, and you're still learning who that person is.
Life is seasons
"Throughout my journey, I learned that life is seasons. That strength and resilience is the hope that we find in ourselves. It is the acceptance, and also the embracing, of all of the ups and downs and all of the different seasons in our life. Knowing that we are part of a cycle."
Farmers have always known this. A field has its months of harvest and its months of bare ground, and in a healthy field the bare months are working too. The soil rests. Roots go deeper where no one can see them.
We are rarely that patient with ourselves. A slow season feels like falling behind. Wini sees it another way. The season she is in asks for rest, softness and acceptance, and answering that honestly is its own kind of blooming.
Macro grief, micro joys
When she talks about how she gets through the days, she uses a phrase that stays with you: macro grief, micro joys.
"Really feeling and allowing myself to be for those micro joys is what keeps me alive. It's what sustains me in this journey."
Her joys are small enough to hold in one hand. Painting. Music. Dancing. Games. A Zoom call with people who knew her at her desk, laughing about old meetings.
People who study grief have noticed something that matches this. Those who carry loss well tend to move between two rooms. In one they face the hard thing directly. In the other they cook dinner, laugh at a bad joke, or lose an hour to a good song. The second room is part of the healing.
It's worth saying out loud, because so many people feel guilty in that second room. Laughing a week after a funeral. Enjoying a meal on a hospital day. Wini's phrase makes space for both. The grief can be enormous, and the joy can be the size of a teacup, and they can share the same afternoon.
Finding herself through the hard seasons
"That makes me feel like I still have a purpose, that I am still myself aside from the fact that I have cancer."
This is the quiet magic of small joys. A hard season wants to become your whole name. You turn into the patient, the one going through it, the person others ask about in lowered voices.
Then you pick up a paintbrush, and for twenty minutes you are a painter.
It might be worth asking what does that for you. It could be the thing you do with your hands, the song that moves your feet before you decide to move, or the friend who makes you laugh like you're nineteen. Those small answers often say more about who you are than any big plan.
Grounded by Her Village
"In going through the hardest season of my life, but I know that I'm not alone. I have my village."
A village can be small. A little brother. Two friends who always text back. A group chat that sends ridiculous things at midnight. Colleagues who still save you a seat on the call. A random hello on Whatsapp sending prayers when I'm in the trenches.
I am so privileged to have my village, of people near and far, who continuously light my torches of hope with different forms of love and care. We may not see each other in person, but what makes it a village is knowing they're there. It's that energy of community that keeps me going.
For you, or for someone you love
If this reached you because someone forwarded it, maybe they're thinking of you. You don't have to be blooming the way you used to. You're allowed to rest, to grieve, and to enjoy the small good things without apologizing for them.
If you're the one who sent it, you're part of someone's village. The things that matter are often smaller than you think. Ask about the painting as well as the treatment. Send the song without expecting a reply. Keep the Friday call going. And stay through the quiet months, after the first wave of messages has passed, when a village is needed most.
And if you'd like something to keep, take a scrap of paper and write two short lists. On one side, your micro joys. On the other, your village. Tuck it somewhere you'll find it on a hard day.
Wini wore FLORA when she shared her story, a collection whose motifs the Ibus draw by hand from what flowers in their regenerative gardens. When she is draped by their fabrics, she feels connected to a village who gave life to this tapestry of hope and prayers.
