Monday, October 26, 2009

we never even bought it a planter

orchid

orchid

We bought this orchid a couple weeks ago thinking it would be a breeze to take care of it but it's proving to be a harder task than anticipated. One of the flowers has already shriveled and I don't doubt that the rest of them will follow. I don't think either of us has really tried to look up proper care since we're so caught up in our daily routines. It's just sitting in his apartment on the mantle, partially obstructed by the door when we open it to go into the common room. We never even bought it a planter.

I want to try and find a way to revive it but why bother trying any harder when it's reached this point? Should we give it more light or water it more? Maybe less light and less water? Or perhaps a mixture of both? What do you do when you feel you've tried everything and nothing seems to work? I'd like to convince myself that it's best to not get too attached and just treat it as another scrapped project among a list of countless other failures. The more time I invest, the more terrible I'll feel when things don't work out as planned. I hate leaving things in the air like that.

I honestly did care about the orchid. The day we bought it was a particularly windy one and I was surprised to see that the delicate plant managed to not break in half during the ten minute walk home. Every petal was intact and nothing was out of place: it seemed almost unreal. But now, now everything is falling apart and we have no one to blame but ourselves. Perhaps if we just took the time to identify and get to know the problem our little "love orchid" may still survive. At the moment, however, we don't seem to be getting anywhere and it's really not helping the situation.

(I'm not just getting melodramatic over a flower, in case you haven't realized it.)