The strength in
withering
操练我安静的力量
枯萎
Have you ever felt useless because you were vulnerable? Or have you ever acknowledged your own strength and resilience for holding yourself up, even at times when you were close to giving up?
Endurance and Resilience
On our bad days, when we feel so down, not all hope is completely lost. The very fact that we keep to our very basic routine of taking care of our personal hygiene, getting out of bed - even for a short while, showing up at work, and, most importantly, still being alive, are all worth celebrating. We chose to keep going.
Similarly, for this fading flower, there is a visible bend in its stem, but it is not completely droopy. From some angles, the flower is still 'looking up'!
Vulnerability
It is absolutely undeniable that, when we are feeling down, we are very vulnerable to a lot of negativity. These could be from our own thoughts, or in comments by others. Sometimes, others mean well by saying "Just be positive!".
However, most of the time, those comments are not practical. In fact, they could have the opposite effect of putting us down even more because we aren't able to "just cheer up." These things take time.
Similarly, perhaps this flower still has many days of vase life left. Maybe the bent stem is due to bruising from careless handling. There could be a chance of it seeing more days if left in a vase with lots of clean water and in a good environment.
Authenticity
In the past, a lot of the time my loved ones will tell me to think positive and that I will be myself again in no time. However, I feel that, even when we are down, deep beneath the gloominess, our true selves are still there. Although we are not as vibrant, we could still be ourselves even at this stage because we are all multi-faceted human beings. In this case, we are just a sad human being right now.
Similarly, this flower could be fading, but it is still a butterfly ranunculus, and not something else just because it may be withering away.
The Vase
This vase is showing very obvious and advanced signs of cracks, yet, it is still able to hold the flower up high. This symbolises that the kind of support we get during this period - whether from within or externally - although not seamless nor perfect, it is giving us enough strength to keep going, until we are ready again one day.
The strength is not in a sudden recovery from feeling down, but in the persistence of the self despite the process of fading.