March 22, 2026

Wildflower - (Episode 2 of 4) - "Overgrowth"

Wildflower - (Episode 2 of 4) -  "Overgrowth"
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Elise's apartment has become a greenhouse, and she's running out of time. Roman arrives to help, and what he teaches her isn't about control—it's about surrender. The magic isn't a curse; it's her. The part she was told was too much, finally demanding to exist.As they work together, Elise starts to remember: the childhood garden her mother paved over, the years of shrinking herself to fit, the grief she's been carrying without knowing its name.When she finally breaks down, flowers bloom from her skin—and Roman doesn't flinch. For the first time in thirty years, someone sees all of her and doesn't look away.

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Caloroga Shark Media. Hello, and welcome to Romance Weekly. This

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is Wildflower, episode two, the Overgrowth. I call him the

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next morning, not because I'm ready, I'm not sure I'll

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ever be ready, but because the flowers have spread overnight.

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My bedroom ceiling is covered in climbing roses, pale pink

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blooms opening toward a light source that doesn't exist. The

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kitchen sink has sprouted water lilies. And when I opened

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my closet to get dressed for work, I found my

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suits wrapped in ivy. My carefully organized wardrobe transformed into

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a vertical garden. I can't go to work like this.

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I can't go anywhere like this. Whatever is happening to me,

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it's accelerating. Roman picks up on the second ring, Eleise.

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His voice is rough, like I woke him. Everything okay, No,

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nothing is okay. My apartment looks like a botanical garden

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had a nervous breakdown. And I have a meeting with

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Miranda Whitmore in four hours and I don't know how

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to make it stop. A pause. Then I'll be there

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in thirty minutes. He hangs up before I can give

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him my address. I realize looking at the phone in

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my hand that I never told him where I live.

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He arrives in twenty seven minutes. I've spent the time

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trying to impose some kind of order on the chaos,

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Pulling nds off my work clothes, clearing a path through

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the living room, attempting to prune the roses on my

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ceiling with kitchen scissors. None of it helps. The flowers

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grow back as fast as I cut them, sometimes faster.

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By the time I hear the knock on my door,

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I've given up. I'm sitting on my couch, surrounded by blooms,

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still in my pajamas. I open the door, and Roman

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takes in the scene without comment. His eyes move from

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the ivy covered walls to the lily filled sink, to me,

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standing in the middle of it, like the eye of

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a very floral storm. Okay, he says, calmly. This is

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more advanced than I expected, more advanced. This is a disaster.

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This is I gesture helplessly at the apartment. How am

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I supposed to explain this? How am I supposed to

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live like this? You're not not like this, He steps inside,

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closing the door behind him. This is what happens when

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you fight it. The more you try to suppress it,

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the harder it pushes back. I'm not fighting anything. I'm

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just existing in a state of constant control, keeping every

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emotion locked down, every instinct managed, every part of yourself

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carefully contained. He looks at me, not unkindly. That is fighting.

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You've been fighting your whole life. The wild magic is

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just the first thing strong enough to fight back. I

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sink onto the couch. A cluster of violets immediately sprouts

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from the cushion beside me. I don't know how to

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be any other way. I admit this is who I am.

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This is how I function No. Roman sits on the

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floor across from me, cross legged, like we're having a

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casual conversation instead of discussing the botanical apocalypse in my

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living room. This is how you survive. There's a difference.

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He talks and I listen, not just because I need answers,

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though I do, but because his voice is calming in

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a way I can't explain, measured, deliberate, like every word

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has been considered before it leaves his mouth, the voice

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of someone who has learned to be careful. Wild magic

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isn't something you control he explains, that's the first thing

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you have to understand. It's not a tool, it's not

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a skill. It's not something you can manage the way

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you manage everything else in your life. It's a force

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like gravity or weather. You can work with it, but

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you can't command it. Then what's the point If I

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can't control it, it just does whatever it wants. The

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point is integration. He picks a fallen petal off the floor,

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turning it between his fingers. Right now, the magic separate

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from you. It's this thing inside that you've been pushing down,

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and now it's erupting because it has nowhere else to go.

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But if you stop fighting, if you let it become

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part of you instead of something you're at war with,

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it finds balance. How do you know because I went

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through this ten years ago, He lets the petal fall.

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When I came back from the fire, I couldn't walk

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down a street without leaving a trail of grass behind me,

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couldn't touch a dead tree without it blooming. I thought

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I was cursed. I thought I was a monster. I

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spent the first two years running from it, trying to

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suppress it, exactly like you're doing. Now. What changed I

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got tired, he almost smiles. Exhausted, really couldn't fight anymore.

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So I stopped. I let it do what it wanted,

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let myself feel what I was feeling, let the wildness

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exist without trying to cage it. And slowly, over months,

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it settled, found a rhythm, became part of me instead

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of something I was carrying. I look around my apartment,

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the roses on the ceiling, the lilies in the sink,

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the ivy slowly consuming my bookshelf. I don't know how

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to stop fighting, I say quietly. I've been doing it

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for so long. I don't remember any other way. Then

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we start there. He stands, offers me his hand. Come on,

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I want to show you something. We go to a park,

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not a formal garden, not a designed space, just a

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scrappy urban park a few blocks from my building. Patchy grass,

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a few struggling trees, a playground with rust on the swings,

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the kind of place that exists because the city needed

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to meet a green space quota, not because anyone particularly cared.

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Roman leads me to a bench at the far end,

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away from the dog walkers and joggers. Sit, he says,

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and close your eyes. Why because you need to feel

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it without seeing it. Your brain is too good at

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managing visual information. You'll start planning and strategizing before you

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even know what you're working with. I sit, I close

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my eyes. It feels ridiculous, a thirty three year old

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woman sitting on a park bench with her eyes closed

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in the middle of a Tuesday morning. But I've already

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passed ridiculous. Ridiculous happens somewhere around the water lilies in

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my kitchen sink. Now, Roman says, his voice, coming from

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somewhere to my left. I want you to feel the

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ground beneath you, not conceptually, actually feel it, the hardness

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of the bench, the solidity of the earth under that,

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the way it supports you without you having to do anything.

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I try. It's harder than it sounds. My brain keeps

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wanting to label things, categorize them, file them away. Bench

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wood painted approximately forty years old municipal standard design. But

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I push past that, try to feel instead of analyze.

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The bench is solid, the ground is solid. I'm being

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held up good. Now, feel beyond that, feel what's underneath,

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what's underneath everything, the roots of those trees spreading out

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under the soil, the dormant seeds waiting for the right conditions,

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the mycolium networks connecting every plant in this park. Life

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elise everywhere, all the time, pushing toward the surface. I

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try to feel it. For a long moment, there's nothing,

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just darkness behind my eyelids and the distant sound of traffic.

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And then something shifts, like a radio tuning to a

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new frequency, a sudden clarity where there was only static.

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I feel, feel, not imagine, a web of something beneath me,

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threads of a liveness, pulsing, slowly, connecting everything. The trees

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aren't separate, they're talking to each other through their roots.

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The grass isn't just grass, It's a community, sharing resources,

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sending signals. The whole park is one organism pretending to

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be many. My breath catches you feel it, Roman says,

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not a question. I feel everything. It's all connected, it's

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all I can't find the words. It's alive, really alive,

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not just existing, but wanting, reaching, growing. That's the wild magic,

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that's what's inside you. His voice is closer now, not

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something foreign, not something imposed, just life doing what life does,

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insisting on itself. I open my eyes. The park looks

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different now, sharper, more vivid. I can almost see the

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aliveness thrumbing beneath the surface of things. And when I

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look at Roman, I see it in him too, a

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greenness around the edges, a sense of growth, barely contained.

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He's carrying the same thing I am. He's just learned

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to let it breathe. How do I make peace with it?

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I ask? How do I stop fighting without letting it

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consume everything? Practice, time, a willingness to let go of control.

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He pauses, and maybe someone to remind you that the

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wildness isn't your enemy? Is that what you are? A reminder?

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I don't know what I am. He meets my eyes

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and there's something unguarded in his expression. But I know

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I've been alone in this for ten years, and I

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know that being alone made everything harder. So if I

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can be something to you, a reminder, a guide, a friend,

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then that's more than I've had a friend. Such a

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simple word, such a complicated thing, when you've spent your

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life keeping everyone at arm's length. Okay, I say, then

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be that. Over the next week. We meet every day,

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sometimes at the park, sometimes at Hartfield while he works

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on the Gala installation. Sometimes at a diner near his place,

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where the coffee is terrible, but the book a private.

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He teaches me things, not spells or techniques, but perspectives,

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ways of thinking about the magic that don't involve fighting it.

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Feel it as part of your breath, he says, one afternoon,

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while we're walking through the estate gardens. In and out.

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It expands when you breathe in, settles when you breathe out,

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natural rhythm, not forced. I try, on the inbreath, I

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feel the magic swell inside me, pressing against my ribs.

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On the outbreath, it recedes, not gone, but resting. It's

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still there when I stop paying attention, but it's not

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erupting anymore, not demanding better, Roman says, now, try walking

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without leaving a trail. I've been leaving flowers everywhere I go,

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a breadcrumb trail of blooms marking my path. It's gotten

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less dramatic since I started working with Roman. No more

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ceiling roses, no more closet ivy. But it's still happening.

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Every step I take leaves a tiny flower in my wake.

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I focus on my breathing in, swell out, settle. I

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take a step forward. No flower another step another. I

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walk twenty feet across the manicured lawn without leaving a

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single bloom behind me. I did it. The joy in

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my voice surprises me. I sound like a child who's

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just learned to ride a bike. Roman, I did it.

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You did. He's smiling, a real smile, not the almost

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smiles I've seen before. It changes his whole face, makes

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him look younger. See, you can work with it. It

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just takes practice. I'm grinning, actually grinning. And then I

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noticed something where I'm standing where I stop to celebrate,

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A ring of wild flowers has erupted around my feet,

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purple and yellow and white, a perfect circle of blooms. Oh,

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my joy deflates. I thought I had it. You do

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have it. You walk twenty feet without a trail. He

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walks over, stands beside me, looks at the flower ring.

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The burst at the end was emotion, not loss of control. Joy. Specifically,

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the magic responds to feeling. So every time I feel something,

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flowers happen. Every time you feel something strongly. When you're calm, centered, breathing,

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it stays quiet when you're emotional, it expresses, He shrugs.

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Could be worse. I spent my first year, setting fires

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every time I got angry. Fires. The magic isn't always

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about growing. Sometimes it's about burning away what's dead to

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make room for new growth. He looks at his hands.

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Took me a long time to find the growing side.

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For a while, all I had was the burning. There's

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something in his voice, old pain, old shame, and I

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understand suddenly that his journey with this has been harder

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than he's letting on. He's not just teaching me because

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he's generous. He's teaching me because he knows what happens

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when you face this alone. I'm glad you found the

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growing side, I say. He looks at me. Something passes

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between us. Not romantic, not yet, but something recognition, maybe

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the sense of being truly seen by someone who understands

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me too. He says. My apartment is still wild, but

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it's a different kind of wild. Now I stop trying

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to fight the flowers. Instead, I've been practicing presents, sitting

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with the growth, breathing with it, letting it exist without

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needing it to be different. The ceiling roses have settled

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into a kind of canopy, dense enough to provide shade

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if there were any sun to block. The ivy on

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the walls has found a pattern, spiraling up in ways

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that look almost intentional. The violets on my couch have

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arranged themselves into cushions, soft and fragrant. It's not the

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minimalist sanctuary I designed. It's not controlled or contained or manageable.

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But it's also not chaos anymore. It's something else, something alive.

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Roman comes over on a Thursday evening, ostensibly to help

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me practice containment exercises, but when he walks in, he

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stops in the doorway and just looks. You've stopped fighting,

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He says, I've stopped fighting. He walks through the apartment,

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slowly trailing his fingers along the ivy wall, touching the

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rose canopy with something like reverence. This is beautiful, he says.

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This is what it looks like when you let it

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be part of you. It's a mess. It's a garden.

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He turns to face me, your garden, the one that's

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been waiting inside you your whole life, while you told

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yourself you had to be empty and clean and controlled.

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Something swells in my chest emotion, recognition, the particular ache

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of being understood. Flowers immediately burst from the floor, around

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my feet, a cascade of color, responding to the feeling.

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I look down at them, embarrassed. Sorry, I'm still working

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on that. Don't apologize. Roman crosses the room, stepping carefully

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around the blooms, and stops in front of me. Don't

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ever apologize for this. This is you, Elise, the real you,

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the whole you, the version and you were told was

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too much. She's not too much. She's exactly right. My

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eyes are stinging. I haven't cried in years. Crying was

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one of the first things I learned to suppress, one

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of the earliest forms of too much. I eliminated. But

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the tears are there, pressing against my control, wanting out.

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How do you know? My voice comes out rough? How

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do you know I'm not too much? Everyone else, my mother,

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my boyfriend's, my colleagues, they all needed me to be less,

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They all needed me to they were wrong, he says.

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It's simply factually. They were overwhelmed by their own limitations,

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and they made you responsible for managing them. That's not

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your job. That was never your job. The tears fall.

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I can't stop them, and as they fall, flowers bloom,

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not from the floor this time, but from my skin,

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tiny white blossos sprouting along my arms, my shoulders, my cheeks.

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I'm flowering from the inside out, and I should be horrified,

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but I'm not. I'm just crying, finally crying, letting the

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grief of thirty years pour out of me. Roman doesn't

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step back, doesn't flinch, doesn't look at the flowers covering

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me and decide it's too much. He just takes my hands,

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holds them, and lets me bloom. Later, after the tears

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have stopped and the flowers have settled into my skin

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like strange tattoos, we sit on my violet cushioned couch

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and drink tea that tastes faintly of roses. I remembered

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something I tell him while I was crying, something from

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when I was little. What I used to make things grow,

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Not like this, not obviously magic, but I'd plants and

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they'd sprout overnight. I had this little garden behind our house,

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and everything I touched thrived. My mother thought it was luck,

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good soil, something explainable, but I knew even then, I

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knew it was me what happened. She paved it over

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when I was eight. The memory surfaces clear and painful.

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I cried for days, huge, wild, crying the kind she hated,

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and she said, my voice catches. She said, good, now,

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maybe you'll calm down. That garden was making you crazy.

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Roman is quiet for a moment. She was afraid of

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you what your mother. She saw what you could do,

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maybe not consciously, but on some level, and it scared her,

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so she destroyed the evidence and shamed you into suppressing it.

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He shakes his head. It wasn't about you being too much.

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It was about her being too limited to handle what

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you were. I've never thought of it that way my

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whole life. I've believed the narrative my mother created that

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I was the problem, that my feelings were too big,

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that I needed to shrink to be loved. But what

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if it wasn't about me at all? What if she

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was just scared. I've been punishing myself for thirty years,

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I say, slowly, for something that was never wrong in

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the first place. A lot of us do that. The

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world is full of people who were taught to be

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ashamed of the best parts of themselves. Roman sets down

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his tea, turns to face me. But you don't have

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to keep doing it. You can choose differently. Now can

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I You already are? He gestures at the apartment, the roses,

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the ivy, the flowers still faintly glowing on my skin.

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This isn't the home of someone who's shrinking. This is

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the home of someone who's starting to expand. I look

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around at my wild, beautiful, uncontrolled space, At the man

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sitting on my couch who sees all of it and

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doesn't run. At the flowers on my arms, the garden

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inside me, finally allowed to exist. I don't know what

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comes next, I admit, neither do I. He smiles. That's

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the thing about growth. You can't plan it. You just

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have to let it happen. Outside the march, wind rattles

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the windows. Spring is coming, and something inside me is

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waking up to meet it,