Today I Choose to be Budding – How to be Budding

Budding is that mortifying, tender stage when something is so new it barely has a shape. I felt it viscerally when I published my first real Enlightenzz post—not the “hello world” test one, but the first actual piece of my heart on the internet.

It was 11:47 PM on a Tuesday. I’d rewritten the opening seventeen times. Changed the title from “Finding Your Way” to “When Life Feels Heavy” to “Today I Choose” and back again. My finger hovered over the publish button for so long my hand cramped.

The post was rough. I knew it was rough. Too long in the middle, that weird tangent about chickens that didn’t quite land, three different metaphors fighting for dominance. My chest felt tight, like I was sending my diary to strangers.

The Humiliation of Beginning

Four people read it that first week. One was definitely Curtis (supportive husband duty). One was me, checking if the formatting held. One was probably a bot. The fourth? A mystery that kept me going.

But something was stirring. I could feel it the way you feel spring while it’s still February—that underground quickening, roots reaching before shoots appear. Every awkward post was a green nub pushing through cold soil. Not beautiful. Not Instagram-worthy. Just stubbornly, embarrassingly alive.

Those early posts make me cringe now. The overwrought metaphors. The way I tried to sound wise instead of real. But I also see them for what they were: necessary. Every clumsy sentence was teaching me my voice. Every failed joke was finding its rhythm. They weren’t failures or masterpieces—they were buds, holding tomorrow’s bloom in today’s awkward beginning.

The Physics of Budding

Budding has its own sensation:

• The tightness in your chest when you hit publish on something imperfect
• The heat in your face when you realize people can actually read this
• The flutter in your stomach checking for comments (there aren’t any)
• The ache in your fingers from over-editing what doesn’t need perfection yet
• The surprise when something small starts to grow

That Tuesday night, publishing that mess of a post, I felt all of it. The physical discomfort of being seen before you’re ready. The vulnerability of growth in public view.

Why We Avoid Budding

At 61, I’ve realized why budding is so hard: we want to skip it. We want to emerge fully formed, like Athena from Zeus’s head—wise, armored, ready for battle. We want to bypass the awkward sprouting phase and arrive at full bloom.

But that’s not how growth works. Everything alive starts small, tender, unimpressive:

• Businesses begin in garages with terrible business plans
• Relationships start with awkward first conversations
• Skills develop through embarrassing early attempts
• Dreams manifest through clumsy first tries
• Even oak trees start as acorns that look nothing like trees

The Courage Required for Budding

Publishing that first real post required a specific kind of courage—not the dramatic, heroic kind, but the quiet courage of allowing yourself to be bad at something that matters to you.

It’s the courage to:

• Share before you’re ready
• Create before you’re qualified
• Begin before you know how it ends
• Grow where people can see you fail
• Trust the process when you can’t see the outcome

That grace of budding—it asks you to be terrible at something that matters to you. To publish when you’re not ready. To grow in public. To trust that these humiliating little shoots know how to become something, even when you don’t.

Budding in Other Areas

Once I recognized budding in my writing, I started seeing it everywhere:

In my Dutch pour painting: Those first attempts looked like someone sneezed paint on canvas. But each disaster taught me about paint viscosity, flow, timing. The buds of understanding.

In learning technology: Every error message, every crashed plugin, every “fatal error” was a bud of comprehension forming.

In relationships: The awkward reconnection with an old friend, those first tentative texts, the careful rebuilding—all budding.

In fitness: Starting to walk again after being sedentary, those first pathetic attempts at stretching, the humbling beginning—classic budding.

Protecting Your Buds

Here’s what I’ve learned about nurturing things in the budding stage:

Don’t show them to everyone. Not everyone deserves to see your tender beginnings. Choose your early readers carefully.

Don’t compare buds to blooms. Comparing your beginning to someone else’s middle is a form of cruelty to yourself.

Water consistently, not frantically. Daily small efforts grow buds better than sporadic overwatering.

Expect ugly stages. Every bud goes through a phase where it looks like it might not make it.

Trust the blueprint inside. The bud knows how to become what it’s meant to be, even when you can’t see it.

The Gift of Staying Small (For Now)

That first Enlightenzz post with its four readers taught me something: there’s protection in being small at first. Those early days when no one’s watching are when you can experiment, fail, try wild things, find your voice.

If my first post had gone viral, I would have frozen. I wasn’t ready for scrutiny. I needed those quiet months of budding, writing to an audience of four (maybe five on a good day), learning what I actually wanted to say.

Budding Is Not Optional

Here’s the hard truth: you can’t skip budding. You can delay it by never starting. You can hide it by never sharing. But you cannot bypass it and arrive at mastery.

Everything meaningful in my life has had a budding phase:

• My 25-year marriage started with an awkward first date
• My career began with not knowing what a P&L was
• My confidence developed through years of faking it
• My wisdom grew from spectacular failures
• Even my current happiness budded from depression

The Beauty of Multiple Buddings

At 61, I’m constantly budding. Every new skill, every new project, every new understanding requires me to be a beginner again. It’s humbling and liberating:

• I’m budding in TikTok understanding (barely a sprout)
• I’m budding in learning to rest (fighting it all the way)
• I’m budding in accepting my changing body
• I’m budding in letting my kids be adults
• I’m budding in this new phase of marriage

Each one requires the same courage—to be bad at it first, to grow in view of others, to trust the process.

Recognizing Budding in Others

Now when I see someone’s awkward beginning—a friend’s first YouTube video, a colleague’s initial presentation, my son’s early attempts at cooking—I see buds. I try to be the gardener who waters them with encouragement rather than the critic who points out they’re not roses yet.

Because I remember that Tuesday at 11:47 PM, finger hovering over publish, chest tight with vulnerability, about to release my tiny bud into the world.

The Promise Inside the Bud

Every bud contains a promise—not a guarantee, but a possibility. That first Enlightenzz post contained the seeds of everything that would follow. I couldn’t see it then. All I could see was the mess, the trying too hard, the not-good-enough.

But the bud knew. It knew how to grow, how to reach, how to become. All I had to do was keep showing up, keep writing, keep publishing my awkward little shoots.

Your Own Budding

Whatever you’re budding in right now—and we’re all budding in something—remember this: the awkwardness is not evidence of failure. It’s evidence of beginning. The discomfort isn’t a sign to stop. It’s a sign you’re growing.

Your buds might look unimpressive. They might embarrass you. They might make you want to quit and wait until you’re “ready.” But ready is a myth. There’s only budding, and then continuing to bud, and then one day realizing you’ve bloomed.

So publish the messy post. Share the imperfect art. Start the awkward conversation. Take the clumsy first step. Your buds don’t need to be beautiful. They just need to be.

Trust that what feels like humiliating beginning is actually courageous becoming. Even when you can only see four people reading. Even when one of them is definitely your spouse. Even when it’s 11:47 PM on a Tuesday and you’re not sure anyone will care.

The bud knows how to bloom. You just have to let it.