Every morning, the first thing I do is check my phone. Likes, comments, message alerts—these numbers decide how I feel all day. At thirty-one, I’m still chasing those little red hearts, as if they could prove I’m worthy of love.
That weekend, I visited my grandmother in rural Oregon. Her garden was a little messy, with weeds and wildflowers mixed together. I couldn’t help saying she should plant some roses. They would photograph better.
My grandmother smiled and pointed to a tiny wildflower in the corner. She said no one waters it, no one fertilizes it, no one comes to see it. Yet it still blooms.
That flower was so small, its petals slightly crooked. But there it was, blooming from a crack in the stones, in a corner no one noticed.
I froze. I remembered the coffee shop photo I posted last month. To get the perfect angle, I moved to five different spots and tried over a dozen filters. That wildflower did none of that. It simply bloomed for itself.
All these years, I’ve been posting, chasing validation, begging people to see me and approve of me. But I never asked myself: if no one was watching, would I still do those things?
That wildflower doesn’t need anyone’s approval. It doesn’t bloom to be called beautiful. It blooms because that’s what it does.
On the drive back, I turned off my notification badges. That evening, I sat by the window and watched the sunset. I didn’t take a photo. I didn’t post anything. The sky turned from orange to purple over twenty minutes. No one knew what I saw. But it was the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen.
For the first time, I felt I had nothing to prove to anyone. Like that wildflower, The notifications were still there the next morning. But for the first time in a long while, I didn’t feel the need to check them right away.
