Call it a cliché, but I have always loved flowers.
They especially meant a lot during my Texas 4000 ride last summer, with my closest friends and I picking wildflowers off the side of the road and tucking them into each other’s pockets or in each other’s hair. Most times they were crumpled. Sometimes they actually ended up just being weeds. But we gave them anyway, as a way of saying: “You’re doing great, I’m there with you.”
I think love often looks like these flowers, like small, quiet gestures of attention and care to say “I see you.” I’ve been thinking about that a lot as I learned more about trafficking, and how so many survivors are not truly seen before “the life” (a term survivors use to describe their time being trafficked), during it, or even afterwards. Before joining the team, I didn’t know much about the issue. Like many others, I assumed that trafficking was rare, distant, and something that didn’t happen “here.” I didn’t know that the majority of survivors are trafficked by someone they know. I didn’t know that an estimated 1 in 4 trafficking victims are children. Or that exploitation often begins with something that looks like care: someone who says “I love you,” an escape from an unstable home, and a meal when no one else is feeding you. From reading “Girls Like Us” by Rachel Lloyd, I have learned that for many survivors, “the life” was the first time they thought they felt loved, even if what they received was actually control disguised as affection.
I have learned that for many survivors, “the life” was the first time they thought they felt loved, even if what they received was actually control disguised as affection.
Throughout Pedal the Pacific, I also realized how much silence truly surrounds this issue, and how society continues to fail survivors by criminalizing them or telling them they are “too broken.” So I ride to pay attention. I ride because education creates space for prevention, and storytelling opens the door for change. I ride because even though I don’t have all the answers, I want to continue learning, asking questions, and refusing to look away.
This summer, we’ll stop in cities along the coast to talk to strangers about the reality of trafficking, sharing what we’ve learned while spreading the survivors’ stories. We’ll create moments where someone who may never have thought about this issue before, suddenly does. That’s why I think PTP matters so much. To start the conversation where it isn’t happening yet, and to let people know they don’t need to be experts or deliver grand gestures to show care.
That’s why I think PTP matters so much. To start the conversation where it isn’t happening yet, and to let people know they don’t need to be experts or deliver grand gestures to show care.
And in my jersey pocket, I want to keep a flower I find every day on the ride. For the girls who were never offered safety. For the survivors who were treated as disposable, when they just wanted to be loved. And I’ll carry one for my parents, my brother, and my sister, for always making me feel understood. For my friends and former teammates, who put flowers (weeds, lol) in my hair and called it beautiful. For the people I love who remind me that “to be loved, is to be seen.”
Because even a crumpled flower that has been dismissed by the world, is still beautiful, still seen, and still worthy.
