Back to the Root

Written By S. F Barrett

A special written by my mother,

Sarah Barrett.

If you have anything you’d like to share, please email me (sfbarrett7@yahoo.com) a rough draft of a piece you have written, and if I choose to share your topic, I will get back to you with a revised edit.

Take us into your creative world. :)

Owning a floral shop looks like a Pinterest board come to life—vases full of exotic colors, soft lighting, dressed in cute little brown boots, and wrapped up in an overpriced apron, arranging red roses like I’m in a Rom-Com.

In reality, it is nothing like that but more like—sunup, and I am dressed as cute as the day allows… right up until the Lily dust explodes and turns my entire outfit into a crime scene, this stuff stains like it’s personally offended by nice clothes. 

Most think of a flower shop and imagine innocent fun, right up until you see what it is like dealing with the never-ending mountain of dirty buckets, boxes of fresh flowers stacked halfway to the ceiling, trying to keep your cool in front of customers basically fighting for your life trying not to make that snarky, perfect comeback, comment, redoing the same bow for the fifth time, triple-checking every arrangement, hands numb, fingers cut, blanketed in band aids from rose thorns, and aching feet, only to look down to see a shipload of leaves and stems that need swept up before someone breaks an ankle.

So now I’ve got a flower shop that has basically become a Pinterest board graveyard—Dutch tricks to make roses last forever, wild-foraged arrangements, etc., etc., etc.

I save the ideas to my creative board at 2:00 in the morning, when my mind decides for me that ’sleep isn’t necessary’. It’s frustrating that the sudden spark of energy and motivation from scrolling through others’ influence has to come so late in the night.

Is it actually motivation or just torture? Considering the day next comes, and I just spend it playing catch-up, pulling dead leaves out of a delivery before it goes out, because any yellowing will result in a bad review. 

No room in the day for those saved ideas.

The vision — the dream — they seem to have been swept up, little by little, with every cut stem.

The truth I’m searching my heart for once again, the ‘why I built this place’ is that I see something unique where others see just a flower.

You can’t teach that eye. You either have it or you don’t.

And every time a customer says, “This is gorgeous,” I begin to remember why I started. Not for the likes on Instagram, not for the money. But for the tiny, ridiculous joy of making someone’s day even slightly more beautiful. 

The art of it is seen in every unique arrangement, more often than not in styles that are not my own. Abnormal and handpicked by the person purchasing, challenging me to envision the dream through a different set of eyes. 

The humanity of it is seen in every flower, shipped from around the world, a beauty shared across the globe. 

The love of it is seen with every nervous gentleman walking through those doors who is getting ready to propose, every soft conversation with families who just lost someone important, every girl who is simply doing something nice for herself, every young boy thinking of their mother, every indecisive bride, and even the impatient mother-in-law.

So, if you’re reading this and you’re tired—whether it’s flowers, kids, emails, and spreadsheets, whatever it is! Know the fog always sucks, the burnout’s real, but life will keep on blooming because you continue to choose it.

Choose it because there’s always beauty on the other side of a simple perspective change.

And honestly, if I can laugh at fixing my limp roses for the third time today … you can too.


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check out Sarah’s (Petal Passion) Instagram page —- showcasing her art

S. F Barrett
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