The Wildflower Assessment for Women Veterans
Because no woman veteran is one thing — and it’s time we built something that honors that
You’re at an event. Formal. The kind with name tags and too-loud music in a room that wasn’t designed for conversation. A handful of women veterans are there. You don’t all know each other — not really — but within twenty minutes you can sort of pick them out.
One woman is working the room. She’s in every photo, she’s got her arm around you before you’ve exchanged ten words, and you’ll see this on Instagram before you get home. One woman found the corner and she’s not moving — the room is not her terrain and she knew it the moment she walked in. Two women clicked immediately, pulled into a sidebar the rest of the room doesn’t have access to. And you — you’re standing there watching all of it, thinking: there is so much I want to know about every one of these women, and this room will never let that happen.
The conversation you want — the one that goes three hours and ends with something true — isn’t available here. It never is in spaces like this. And everyone goes home a little more alone than they needed to be.
This is not a failure of character. This is a terrain mismatch. And most of us have been living inside it for years without language for what it costs.
