You’re Not Antisocial. You’re Just Intentional.

Somewhere between the busyness of launching something new and the ordinary rhythm of a Sunday afternoon, I ended up at a free bouquet workshop and zine party at The Washington Cafe.

I almost didn’t go.

Not because I had somewhere better to be. But because I told myself the story I always tell — that I don’t really like being outside. Too many people. Too much energy. I’d rather be home.

But I went. And while I was there, someone said something to me that I haven’t been able to shake.

She said: “It’s not that you don’t like being outside. You just like being out with intention and in the right rooms.”

One statement. And just like that, something I’d been calling a personality trait turned out to just be a preference. A discernment. A standard I’d never given myself credit for having.

I didn’t know what a zine was walking in. I followed the host, Kimee, a couple of days before the event after a friend shared it on his stories. She slid into my DMs to introduce herself before we’d even met in person. And today we were in the same room learning about flowers and making bouquets like we’d been in each other’s orbit for years.

That’s what a yes can do.

I left knowing things about flowers I had absolutely no business knowing, holding a bouquet Kimee made, and carrying a reframe I didn’t know I needed. And none of it cost a thing except the willingness to show up.

It’s not that you don’t like being outside. You just like being out with intention and in the right rooms.

That Sunday reminded me of something I’ve been sitting with a lot lately: how much we miss when we’re not paying attention. Not just to the world around us, but to what’s happening in and around us.

Which brings me to something a little less glamorous.

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A few weeks ago I realized I had a keloid growing on the back of one of my ears.

The thing is, I’d felt a bump there for months. I just never stopped to actually look at it. And when I finally did, I was shocked by how much it had grown without me noticing.

I panicked. Made a dermatologist appointment. Found out keloids are completely normal and very treatable.

But what stayed with me wasn’t the diagnosis. It was the realization that the piercing causing it, I’d had it so long ago I forgot the hole was even still there. I thought that chapter was closed. Turns out it was still there, silently growing and because I didn’t feel the pain, I ignored the growth.

There are things growing in and around us that we can feel but haven’t looked at yet. Old wounds we think are healed. Doors we believe are shut. Versions of ourselves we assume we’ve moved past.

They’re not always dangerous. But they do grow. And they will get your attention eventually…one way or another.

Turns out it was still there, silently growing, and because I didn’t feel the pain, I ignored the growth.”

Pay attention before they have to make you.

That’s what April has been teaching me. Not in a loud, dramatic way. Just quietly, in bouquet workshops and dermatologist offices.

The right rooms are waiting. The things growing quietly won’t stay quiet forever. Face it or it will face you.

Pay attention.

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