My freshman year of high school, I got a text message from an unknown number with a random fact about a cactus. Every day for weeks, I received a cactus fact from this same unknown number, and when I started talking about it in class, I suddenly started receiving cactus facts from at least four unknown numbers every day. Then, a cactus facts Instagram page was made. It suddenly felt like the entire school was in on this random cactus obsession following me, and for my sixteenth birthday the next year, I got my first real cactus and placed it in my windowsill. As time went on, I slowly acquired more and more cacti as gifts from myself and from my friends. I came to college with eleven cacti, and now, my roommate and I have a garden of 22.
Cacti began as a strange joke in my life, and now, they're a huge part of my life. As I've collected them and taken care of them, I've learned quite a bit from my plants. Here are the top five lessons I've learned from my cactus garden.
1. Life is better with friends.
My love for cacti began as a joke between my friends, and then it came to symbolize the love we had for each other as we exchanged them for birthday gifts. Now, they are something that have bonded me with my roommate as we drive around town looking for new ones and sit in our dorm on wild Saturday nights painting pots to plant them in. I can't help but look at the first cactus I ever got and think about how lonely it would be on my windowsill alone but how people it is surrounded by others.
2. Thriving is possible in any environment.
Every cactus I've ever gotten has had a tag on it that says "I thrive on neglect". My often forgetful caregiving of them proves that they do, in fact, thrive on neglect. I have gone months without watering them. They spent three months in total darkness as hurricane shutters covered my windows. One fell out of its pot during a storm because my friend had left it on my car to surprise me. Yet they survive and grow and remain beautiful, proving that it is possible to thrive no matter how bad circumstances are.
3. Slow growth is still growth.
Cacti are notoriously slow growers, and I often don't even realize mine have grown at all in the years I've had them until I look back to the photo I took when I first got them. They are growing a little bit every day, and that growth adds up, slowly but surely. Changes don't have to be huge and sweeping for them to be incredible in the end.
4. Be resilient.
Like I said, my cacti have been through a lot, but they're still thriving. They don't let falling, neglect, or storms stop them, and neither should we.
5. Beauty comes in all shapes, sizes, and colors.
Every cactus I have looks incredibly different from all the others. I have some that look exactly how most people picture a cactus. Others are bright orange, green, pink, and yellow. Some have little flowers on them. Some are tall and thin while others are short and round. One looks almost like Ursula from The Little Mermaid. They're all different, but they're all beautiful, unique, and perfect.
