🌊Sunflowers!

Photos from their growth journey--and from my past healing journey

Jul 20, 2025

I planted sunflowers from seeds this past spring, and I’m awestruck at how fast they have grown. They are certainly adding joy to my life (which has been one of my goals, as I wrote about in my post “Learning to Reach for Joy”)! 🌻

This was me after planting the seedlings (which I’d started in pots) in the ground on May 18 (and my husband in the background, helping me out):

I took this photo of them on May 27:

And this one is from two days ago (July 18)—just two months later!

!!!! I had no idea they would grow so fast!

I love them so much.

Why sunflowers are so meaningful to me

In my early twenties (over fifteen years ago now), my life was critically falling apart. In addition to severe depression (that I now believe was largely due to “autistic burnout”), I was having a crisis of faith.

So my entire life, which had been built around my faith (as well as around my being able to function), was in total upheaval. For example, I had to drop out of my last semester of Bible college because I wasn’t eating and was passively suicidal—and I didn’t know whether I would ever graduate, because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to honestly sign the required paper attesting to my belief in their doctrines.

Eventually, thanks to a therapist who worked hard with me, my parents, and our insurance, I got to spend two months at a mental health treatment center—the Life Healing Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

And there, I started coming back to life.

They had a patch of thriving sunflowers lining the steps to the dining hall/main building, so I passed them multiple times every day. Over time, as I began to open up and start healing, those sunflowers began to feel to me like symbols of life and healing.

I have a photo of them:

And here’s a photo of the rocking chair I sat in on the deck every morning, drinking tea, watching the sunrise, and writing in my journal—and, very gradually, reviving my consent to keep living.

I now have my own rocking chair, on my own deck, with my own sunflowers—and, most importantly, a life that is based on taking care of myself and reaching for joy.