Thoughts and Roses

"Truths and roses have thorns about them." —Henry David Thoreau

As we all know, it's February 26th today, which means that Valentine'sDay was almost two weeks ago. That also means that all of the flowers that were given are probably now dried up and wilted. Which leads me to a question: why do we use flowers, which wilt and die in a few weeks, to represent love, which lasts forever?

I know what you might be thinking: "Love doesn't last forever! Just look at breakups and the divorce rate!"

Well, let me say something else. I don't believe that's really love. And love does last forever. Love is more than just passion and excitement and butterflies in your stomach and that tight feeling in your chest when you look at or think about the person you "love." It is all those things, certainly, but it is more. It's also a choice.

Love comes with ups and downs, just like anything else in life. Real love is when you choose to work it out and go through the downs together, rather than giving up. So why do so many people break up? Sometimes, it's just because they found it easier to give up than to work it out together. When you choose to commit to loving a person, it does last.

But flowers don't. So why do we use them to represent something that does? Well, several reasons, I guess.

For one thing, it's a bit traditional, now. I'm not really sure when, why, or how this tradition of giving cut flowers to one's significant other began, but it's certainly a tradition now.

Secondly, it's generally accepted that flowers are pretty. People like flowers.

Thirdly, on a deeper level, I think that they can represent how quickly life may go by; how delicate our lives can be; how each of us grow and bloom as individuals.

Roses are special flowers. They seem to be the favorites of poets and romantics and Valentine's Day gift-givers. But more importantly, they have thorns. And I think that that says something important about us as humans, that we would pick flowers that have painful thorns as our favorites. It shows that we recognize that bad things don't have to ruin the good.

What do you think about flowers and the meaning they hold? Let me know in comments!