I am soaking in the sun in the garden where the flowers tumble from their trellis, one over the other, with little effort and great glory. They flirt with me, confident in their radiance and their right of place.
There is one bloom that seems to be reaching for me, and I am struck by how bold it is. Not just in its colour and form but in conviction; to bloom and to be.
It never tries to be something else, it doesn't bemoan not being a statuesque chestnut tree, it doesn't question the meaning of its thorns or the variations of its colour. As far as I know, it does not suck in its breath to makes its stems skinnier, or lift its petals higher to appear more intelligent. It doesn't question whether it should unfold its petals, given that there are so many others doing the same, and it has "nothing different to offer". It has no time for regretting the quality of the soil or envying the sunny part of the wall. It seems to simply ground itself in the earth where it has rooted and goes about becoming what it was always meant to be.
In all its glory. To the best of its potential. With no apology.
A rose is a rose. I am mesmerized by this idea, by the simplicity of existing without explanation or justification.
What if I lived as this flower does? What if I lived without apologizing? What if I lived with a simple knowing that my only task is to actualize into what I already am, not some construct of what I, or society, believes I should be?
In my twenties, I apologized for the tears that flowed so easily, for not knowing enough, for wanting to stretch instead of conforming. I apologized for being a dreamer, for being smart, for having an eating disorder.
In my thirties, the apologies continued—for the tenderness of my heart, for my need for belonging, for my idealistic views. For my defiance of the rules, my obsession with self-help books and dance parties.
Then my forties arrived, and still I apologized: for my ambition, for my intuition, for my soul that recognized itself as both a goddess and a businesswoman, for my weight gain, for my success.
And through all of those apologies, I consumed time, nursed anxieties, and spent great energy fulfilling a promise to myself to get it right and be more.
What if I had simply lived all of these expressions of me with the boldness of this flower, with acceptance for what emerged as an inescapable part of my form, just like the petals and the scent are for this rose?
What if I had turned myself over to the gentle becoming of who my soul already knows itself to be?
And with that, I feel a huge wave of relief. The apologies were never really about me—they were about a world that sometimes struggles to hold the full truth of who we are.
In my fifties I stopped apologizing. For my round tummy, my full laugh, my head full of stories, my exacting demands for excellence, my love of colour and intuition. For my quirky sense of humour, the depth of my sensitivity, my need to be held, my need for space, my love of the French words like "frisson" and my emotions, pinned to my sleeve.
No more lists of 20 things that will bring perfection. No more time wasted fighting who I am. I am relinquishing the search for "who I should be" and simply trusting that I need only discover how to be who I am. The changes that come now are the natural expression of who I am now.
The fullest expression of me. In all my Tania-ness.
This is how we become our own sanctuary. When I stop apologizing for my nature, I feel my shoulders drop, my breath deepen. Like the rose that finds peace in simply being rooted where it is, I discover refuge not in hiding or diminishing, but in the sacred act of taking up my rightful space. Here, in this sanctuary of self, there is room for all of me—the tears and the laughter, the ambition and the tenderness, the goddess and the businesswoman. Here, I am both shelter and sheltered.
Acceptance. I am a rose.
And perhaps you are too.
