Each type of plant has its own bloom time. One of my favorite things about flowers is that they have a season - crocus and daffodils come up first where I live - they signal that spring has sprung - and then it's lights out for them until next year. Next come tulips and peonies. Then we've got biennials like foxgloves and then hardy annuals - zinnias (the pic above is from my garden - obsessed!), cosmos, snapdragons.  Late in the summer dahlias start to bud and generally flower into the fall when sunflowers and chrysanthemums come up. I have one favorite but then another flower blooms and that's my new favorite! BUT, imagine if they all bloomed for a month and that was it - everybody all at once. It would stink!

Now, imagine if all of them bloomed for just one month, all at once. It would be chaos — and honestly, a little disappointing.

I know at different points in my life I've looked around at other people and wondered why I wasn't where they were - they were blooming and I hadn't even developed my first set of leaves even though we might have started at the same time. It can make you feel confused, frustrated, less-than, all of that. And then I hear my friend Di Ana saying "compare leads to despair" - and she was right!

When I first moved to New York City 22 years ago, I wanted to be on Broadway. I auditioned, I studied, I worked — but while some of my friends had huge careers, my path was slower, harder, less glamorous. I did book some great regional shows, but more often I was in the waiting period.

Later, when I founded Erin’s Faces, I discovered a new season — one where I got to write, direct, and perform in a way that felt true to me and was in my control (a first!). It wasn’t constant fireworks. Just like flowers, our business had flushes of blooms — a product launch here, a glowing review there, a press mention that sold us out. Then there were quiet stretches that felt dormant but were actually rebuilding energy for the next bloom.

I was planting a zinnia patch this year and did everything you're not supposed to do.  I scattered seeds, didn't thin them, didn't net/stake them, and once established really didn't water them.  I did baby their seedlings but otherwise left them alone.  They did AWESOME and have been a showstopper on our street as well as a constant source of flowers for my bouquets.  I put in the work in the beginning with them, experimented a new way of doing things for me that happened to work out beautifully, and ended up with armfuls of flowers all summer long.

And now, I’m in another season again, stepping into Erin Williams Creative. It feels tender, like a seedling, but I know enough now to protect it, water it, and trust that it will bloom when the time is right.

The truth is, it’s literally impossible to bloom every single day. Flowers remind me of that. Zinnias can take the heat. Peonies need the cool. Dahlias don’t rush. Each has its season, and so do we.

As my friend Jen Waldman says, “the world needs what you have to give.” The world needs your bloom — in your time, in your way, in your season.