Late Pumpkin
3 days before Halloween I was gifted a pumpkin that was still green. Striped and speckled in a variety of dark and light shades. My coworker's family had gone pumpkin picking the week before and had too many, so she shared with me. The pumpkin has been sitting in my entryway on the piano bench I keep there for putting on shoes. I don't have a porch or balcony to display a carved pumpkin, and the pumpkin was green, so I didn't bother this year.
It finally turned orange last week. Almost two weeks late for the pumpkin holiday, it finally turned the prettiest solid orange, and every time I move through the entryway I marvel at the color and think about how it used to be green.
Some people are like the pumpkin. Late bloomers. Coming into themselves past when everyone else does. Learning skills or figuring out life beyond when it is societally acceptable. I am a late bloomer. Reading didn't click for me until I was 8. Then I became a voracious reader, as if trying to make up for lost time. I'm still like that. I'm in my mid-thirties and I'm just now figuring out how to keep a household running. I will continue being like that, marrying later than any of my cousins, having children later than anyone in my family, achieving my dreams later than I had planned.
Being a late pumpkin is okay, because sometimes the late pumpkins are the prettiest.