My brothers and I recently got matching tattoos- three lighters, one representing each of us. We each picked a design for our lighter, and I chose a cactus. I wasn't expecting to get a lot of questions about it, but I have. Everyone seems to be asking the same question: Why a cactus?

My cactus thing started freshman year of high school when a boy in my engineering class got my number from someone and started anonymously sending me cactus facts every day. Others found out, and suddenly I had multiple people texting me random facts about cacti daily. Suddenly, an Instagram account was created to keep the joke going.

Sophomore year, I gave my friend, who ran the Instagram, a cactus for her birthday and decided to get one for myself.

That first cactus turned into two and then three and then friends starting gifting them to me, and all of sudden, I had twenty cacti and succulents growing in my windowsill. What started as a stupid joke turned into a mild obsession. It became something I loved.

I've never been good at keeping things alive. Gardens withered, and my pet fish always died within a month. My cacti, however, survived and grew. They were thriving, and that's why I loved them.

A cactus doesn't need much to grow, just sunlight and a little bit of water every now and then. They can be left alone for months and be more than fine. My cacti survived weeks of darkness during hurricane season. They survived being dropped and knocked over. One got knocked out of its pot during a storm after my friend left it on my car as a surprise for me and laid on the ground of the parking lot for hours without soil and with rain and wind tossing it around, yet it lived for years.

A cactus is persevering. It is resilient. It is strong. It protects itself and others, and many have medicinal properties that heal. Some can be clipped and new ones will grow from those clippings. They can grow wherever there is sunlight, warmth, and the occasional water.

That's what I want to be. I want to endure and thrive. I want to be able to grow wherever I am planted. I want to be a comforting and safe place for others. I want to embody everything a cactus represents, and that is why I chose the cactus for my tattoo. It'll be a constant reminder to persevere.