Guilt Orchid Orphans

Remember my orchid? And how I was gonna find the special dirt for it and everything? Well, I found the special dirt and it wasn't that hard. The florist also gave LE a bunch of daisies that was on its last legs, then he gave him another one to give to me.

Nice stuff like that just happens here. A lot, actually.

Anyway, I got to thinking about the orchid, now that it is with child.

Except apparently orchid babies are called keikis. It's cute they have a special name.

So this orchid. I never would have bought an orchid myself. The last one I had, one my mom gave me like 20 years ago, died slowly for no apparent reason and I felt awful for killing such a delicate thing.

But this orchid even had an unfortunate providence to begin with. Shortly after BE and I split up, like a week after I kicked him out of the house, he came by while I was at work (he had a key for awhile), and left me a diamond ring, an orchid, and some red rose petals scattered on the floor and around the orchid.

Guilty guilty guilty. Guilty for making him feel bad. Wait, what?

Well, you know how it is.

Also guilty for not wanting any of that stuff. Guilty for being mad at him all over again for not knowing that I wouldn't want that stuff. Guilty for feeling sad for whoever had told him that might be a good way to win me back, and for not being the sort of person who could be made happy by jewelry and flowers and romantic gestures, however belated and surreal. Guilty for being annoyed that I would have to clean up the rose petals.

I gave him the ring back. And then I felt guilty that I was now saddled with the care of an orchid that was completely innocent and had nothing to do with any of this.

So I asked my mom how to deal with the thing, and found a reasonable spot for it to live, and carried on like that.

And it didn't die. Then it grew. A smashed cigarette box holds the pot up straight in the bowl because it grew so much it couldn't stand up by itself and I had to MacGuyver it a little. When my mom was here for Christmas, she showed me where to prune it, so I did. And this year at the beginning of summer it flowered again.

For some reason, the orchid doesn't hate me. I don't hate it either. It just makes me feel kind of bad. Not that I blame the orchid.

After it flowered, it started having babies. There are two of them. I snipped one of them off and stuck it in the potting mix I bought from Mustafa the Florist. The other one, I'm waiting for the flower to drop before planting it.

And I have a sinking feeling the Guilt Orchid's babies are going to take. I'm not sure what to do with them. Usually I give my flower babies to my mother-in-law, but this seems inappropriate somehow. I offered one to a friend who knows the Guilt Orchid's life story, but he's afraid of killing the baby. So I'm a bit stuck on this one.

Making peace with the orchid.

Also it's hard to decide what all the orchid means, at this point. A symbol of lingering guilt? Or does it mean something cheesy about a new life and getting by against the odds or whatever?

Maybe it's just a flower that's been genetically modified to survive a houseplant spaz like me.

Anyway, want a baby orchid that may be a really good omen, or a really bad one, or no sort of omen at all?