Bent but not Broken

I’ve always noticed the bent ones. The trees that don’t grow quite the way you expect them to. The ones that turn toward the light, curve around what stands in their way, or carry the marks of seasons that asked a little more of them. There is something beautiful about that. A tree doesn’t have to grow straight to keep growing. It adapts. It reaches. It finds another way. The storms had changed it, but they had also made it something more interesting. Stronger in some places. Softer in others. And still growing. Maybe that is what resilience really looks like. Not returning to exactly who we were before, but continuing to become something new. Bent in places. Marked by what we’ve weathered. Growing in directions we never expected. And still reaching for the light.