Tulips have been my favorite flowers for as long as I can remember. Like roses, they have different meanings for different colors, and are often associated with love. Unlike roses, however, they are simple and usually only have about 6 petals.
Though they are originally from Persia and Turkey, today we often associate tulips with the Netherlands. Since I was born in the Netherlands, (my dad was in the military stationed in Germany) this may be part of the reason I identify with tulips so much. Even though I’m not Dutch, I will always feel like the Netherlands are a part of me, and with that comes tulips.
Tulips to me are the way life should be viewed. Simple, fragile, and beautiful no matter what. Tulips have few petals, and from the outside are very simple and symmetric. They are neat and orderly, drawing in the left-brained parts of me, but also all the colors and sizes draw in the right brained side.
All flowers are fragile, but some can be survive longer after they are cut. Tulips are not this type of flower. They are very short lived once you bring them in from the garden. Life is like that too. It is fragile, and we never know how long it is going to last. Instead of thinking that it will last forever, we should assume that it will not survive very long and live accordingly.
Tulips are also very elegant and beautiful. It sounds cliché to say it, but I believe that all life is beautiful. With flowers, we only ever see the beauty. We have learned to see the beauty they will become while they are still buds, and the beauty they have been even after they have wilted. We can look past the defects and see the flower as a whole, simple and elegant and lovely. People should be viewed as such. We should not look down on children because they have not yet grown, or the elderly because they are past their prime. Everyone has some defects, but learning to look past that and see the inner beauty of all is a challenge that we should strive to overcome.
Tulips portray the way I want to be seen, inside and outside. On the outside they are simple and pleasing to the eye, but on the inside they are mysterious and protected and hidden. Not everyone has seen the inside of a tulip, how they are darker at the bottom of the petals. One has to go looking for the extra beauty that is hidden inside a tulip. The outside is entrancing and beautiful, but the inside is simply breath taking. The outside is sophisticated and elegant, but the inside is deep and refined and stunning. I want to appear sophisticated, smart, elegant and refined, but I want the right people, or person, to find that I am also intellectual, distinguished and incredible to them. I want the deepest, most intricate parts of myself hidden for only those that truly love me to find. I want my darkest secrets revealed only to those I know I can truly trust; the ones that search for it and do not give up.
I could write about tulips forever, but I’m afraid it would turn into mostly rambling, and I’ve touched on everything that initially comes to mind. Tulips are beautiful, inside and out, and we should value people in the same exact way, regardless of what we first see.
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