You Belong Among the Wildflowers
- Heather Beebe
- Nov 23
- 8 min read
Arranged marriages. They’re all arranged. Even if we arrange them ourselves. An arrangement to fit an image of what a wedding, a relationship, a life is supposed to look like.
It’s not just weddings though. It’s our lives in general.
How often do we arrange our own discomfort and misalignment?
What are all the ways we allow ourselves to be plucked and shoved into a vase with other look-alike flowers?
The random bouquet of wildflowers holds a different kind of beauty than the perfectly curated bouquet of store-bought flowers.
The colors aren’t evenly dispersed.
Some stick out at odd angles, and the stem lengths are naturally varying.
Still - they display a natural beauty that is captivating in a way that is not quite able to be described. You see them, and you look twice. You gravitate to them, their free spirit pulling you in even though you can’t quite explain why. You feel comfortable with them, like they somehow, even without words, give you permission to breathe a little easier, dress a little brighter, and laugh a little louder.
With the wildflowers, you choose.
You choose your religion, your marital status, your wealth, your education, your fashion style, the books you read, the people you engage with. You choose.
There is no blending, because all colors are welcome in the wildflower bouquet, and that’s what ends up making it so beautiful.
There is an acceptance here that isn’t loud. It just is.
You KNOW you’re welcome here.
You can pull up a chair - or a floor cushion, a yoga mat, or a hay bale - and join the conversation.
Once, when I was a young girl living in the religious commune where I grew up - maybe second grade or so - my dad was getting me and my siblings ready for school. It was a bitter Canadian winter morning. Mornings always started early back then, around 6:00 AM, because all the commune families gathered for breakfast at 7:00 sharp. Before we ate, there were morning devotions led by whoever’s name was listed on the devotions calendar. Teenagers usually started appearing on that calendar, responsible for sharing a short scripture or insight before the group prayed and moved into breakfast.
The breakfast cook, another rotating schedule that included all the women, was typically up by 5:00 AM to prepare the meal. On this particular morning, my mom was the breakfast cook, which meant my dad was in charge of getting three young kids dressed, brushed, layered, and ready. There was no such thing as eating breakfast in pajamas. And there was certainly no missing devotions. Devotions were considered fuel for your mind; breakfast was fuel for your body. After breakfast, we left straight for school.
That morning, Dad gave me the freedom to dress myself.
Always a lover of color, I proudly picked out a skirt covered in bright flowers and paired it with a blouse splashed with equally bright music notes. In my young mind, the logic was airtight: colors match colors. If both pieces had bright colors, then of course they matched. Dad must have agreed with my reasoning because he didn’t question it at all - just bundled me up in my heavy coat and winter gear, ready to head out the door.
We trudged through the snow toward the main house where Mom was cooking breakfast. When we arrived, I peeled off my outer layers. The moment she saw my outfit, my mom burst into laughter, not unkindly, but amused. The others already gathered joined in. I stood there confused, looking around, trying to understand what was so funny.
My mom looked at my dad with a teasing shake of her head.
“Paul, what were you thinking?” she asked, still laughing.
Dad looked genuinely puzzled.
“What do you mean? What’s wrong with it?”
“She doesn’t match,” Mom said. “Music notes and flowers don’t go together. You don’t mix patterns.”
Dad shrugged. “It’s all the same colors. It looks fine to me.”
I felt a little spark of pride that someone understood my logic.
Bright goes with bright.
Color goes with color.
Who cares if the patterns don’t match? I had done a good job. At least, that’s how it felt inside my little rainbow-loving brain.
Hence began my fashion sense. Always and forever pushing the limits with my style. Challenging the norms - in fashion and in life.
With strict religion comes conformity and a deep programming to fit an image. An image of righteousness, holiness, like-God-ness.
Fit the image, even if you’re falling apart on the inside.
Still be that perfectly picked flower that fits nicely into the pristinely arranged vase of other perfectly picked flowers, so tightly and perfectly packed in, that you can’t move or breathe. Stay put, don’t drop a petal, and don’t move out of arrangement, no matter how uncomfortable it may be.
Stay in this perfectly poised position and let onlookers admire just how beautiful and graceful you look in this arrangement. Stay that way so long, that they can’t imagine you anywhere else and that they only know how to see you with the others who are also on display with you, in a tight bouquet with no room for flowers of any other color, shape, or size. Be perfect, as God is perfect.
We all come from some type of lifestyle that fits us into an arrangement.
For me, the arrangement was religion and the expectations that came with that.
For others, it might be societal class, an education that’s expected of you, career, family status, and so many other possibilities.
We find ourselves in an arrangement that is made up of childhood experiences and beliefs instilled in us. And from there, many of us continue to live within that arrangement in many aspects of our lives.
Part of my “arrangement” was that relationships, especially marriage, are forever and must not end. And I lived out that arrangement through a not-so-great 10 year relationship, even though I had long left the religious setting where I grew up.
So many times when that relationship didn’t feel right, I imagined it ending and what that freedom would feel like - yes, even on my wedding day.
But life outside that arrangement felt scary. No, it wasn’t an arranged marriage in the typical sense. But it was completely arranged - by me - and I continued to live out that arrangement, as uncomfortable as it was.
Sometimes I grew a little too big or my colors got a little too bright, though.
And I found it increasingly hard to stay stuck in such a stifling arrangement. And finally, I grew so big and bright that the vase couldn’t hold me anymore, and it shattered, breaking me free, not just from the relationship, but from conformity and arrangements in general.
Interestingly enough, one of the aspects of my personality that was continuously attacked in that relationship was my fashion. Phrases such as “That dress is too short” or “That shirt shows too much” were not foreign to me. As my fashion play evolved during my teen years in the religious commune setting, my clothing came under a lot of scrutiny, and I was constantly reprimanded for my choices and told to go change into something more appropriate.
So, I guess it makes sense that, since I was still living from that arrangement, I found myself in a relationship with a man who mimicked the same uptight views I had grown up with.
I’ve since come to believe that “something more appropriate” is really code for “your freedom makes me uncomfortable, so please inhibit yourself for my comfort”.
After all, how dare we celebrate beauty and creativity and art, as is the female body.
The female body is colors and flowers and music notes all woven into one dramatic, flowing, ever-evolving arrangement.
And yet, we spend years being taught to cover it, quiet it, hide it.
We’re taught to feel shame not only for being seen, but even for those who admire us with genuine respect (key word: respect - creeps need not apply).
So many of us grew up learning to shut ourselves down, to blend in, to match our clothes just so, to keep everything neat and unnoticeable.
God forbid you mix flowers and music notes - externally or internally.
My divorce was, by most standards, really quite simple.
We didn’t share kids or properties or complicated assets.
I didn’t want to fight for anything.
I just wanted out. Period.
So I walked away with nothing.
But I had my freedom, and that felt like everything.
The court appointment fell in early 2020, during the first days of COVID, so I got to attend from my kitchen counter over Zoom. The beautiful thing about Zoom calls is you only have to be appropriate from the waist up.
That morning, as I got ready, I put on a short black dress - one I hadn’t been able to wear with him because it would have definitely pushed him out of his comfort zone as far as appropriateness goes. Up top, though, it was completely court-friendly.
Perfect.
I opted out of panties. I sat on the barstool at my kitchen counter, feeling bold, nervous, and a bit risque, pantiless in my short black dress.
Definitely a wild flower moment.
The appointment was fast and to the point.
It ended, I popped the bottle of champagne I had purchased for the occasion, and headed to drink it by the pool - alone, just me, my thoughts, and my book.
There I was finally, a wildflower broken free from another confining arrangement of my own doing, unsure where I belonged, but not unsure that I would somehow find it. I was no stranger at this point to uprooting myself and replanting somewhere else.
It wasn’t easy, but I had learned that fresh soil felt amazing, and if you could get through the painful digging part, it would always be worth it.
Even wildflowers feel uncertain in that space between uprooting and replanting.
Not uncertain in their decision per se, but uncertain in the direction to head.
Breaking free can feel a bit traumatic and leave parts of you a bit scattered, and it can take time to collect those parts of you and make sense of them again. They’re usually the parts that have been submerged in water in the tight vase for so long, they’ve gotten fragile and weak. They need some time to dry out in the sun for a bit so they can remember how they’re meant to be used.
It’s been so long since they stood proud and free waving in the breeze in the company of other wildflowers, that they almost have forgotten how.
Almost.
They require a support system around them to prop them up until they feel strong again, and as that strength comes, so does the remembering of how to be free and wild and authentically themselves.
It’s the act of getting to know yourself all over again. Your creative side, your colorful side, your uninhibited side…and loving those sides back to life.
We tend to think of any form of disarrangement as a bad thing.
Disarrangement, in our minds, means out of order, chaotic, messy. We fight to keep things together in the picture-perfect arrangements we’ve gotten so comfortable with, believing the absolute worst would happen should these perfect yet fragile arrangements fall apart.
A relationship ending, a business closing, a deal falling through, even a death.
Some form of these perfect arrangements exists for all of us because we’ve learned that life outside of them is scary.
Someone told us once upon a time that flowers and music notes don’t mix, and we chose to believe them, even if deep inside we can’t quite understand why.
Still, we thrust ourselves into our appropriate muted clothing, count our calories, and commit ourselves to relationships with people that do the same.
All of us pawns in a life-size game of very beige chess.
I don’t support recklessness; I stand in awe of truth.
Truth so bold and colorful that it can’t go unnoticed.
Truth that refuses to conform any longer, even if it means standing alone.
Truth that doesn’t hide her body in shame but celebrates it at every stage, through every change, and for every ability.
Truth that takes the shape of a wildflower even when the onlookers have only known it in a vase with look-a-like flowers.
And that wildflower, once set free, turns into an entire fucking meadow, because gardens and their perfectly arranged rows are too damn confining.
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