I'm not good at taking care of things. I'm tidy and neat, but if something can be replaced by going to Target, I usually don't concern myself too much with making sure it's protected. There are weird exceptions, like books that I would rather die than see their covers bent, or my air fryer, which I lovingly wash with bleach wipes at least once a week, but, for the most part, I just don't care.
About 10 years ago, my mom had this beat-up spider plant that she forced on me. I think it was some kind of test of adulthood. The thing was half-dead and in this odd, brown pot (there were faces on it? And weird holes? No idea what botanist/witch bequeathed it to her.)
Over time, this plant, Louise, and I cohabitated. We weren't necessarily friendly, but we also weren't antagonistic. Louise came onto the verge of death several times before I'd remember her, then give her some water and she'd live to see another month.
At her peak, Louise had ALL green leaves, not a single dead shoot on her. This was when I first moved out into my own apartment, and I took Louise's health very seriously. She was my roommate for all intents and purposes and so she needed to be protected.
But those days of plenty were short-lived. Louise and her busted, creepy pot were soon forgotten as I focused more on travel and dating. By the time I moved from that first solo apartment, Louise had 1 living shoot (less spider than inchworm plant at that point). She was lovingly tossed into a dumpster, and I turned my focus to fake plants. Dusting plastic leaves was more in my wheelhouse.
With COVID, Ernesto and my household has put a tentative step into the waters of plant parenthood. I would have happily stuck with plastic plants, but it was not to be.
Ernesto started the trend with a poinsettia he purchased over Christmas. (We'll call him Hubert… he died so fast, no name was really needed.) Hubert was put on our dining room table and promptly forgotten. Being cold-hearted, I viewed him as "Ernesto's responsibility" – Ernesto simply forgot to water him despite his prominent place in the center of our household.
As Ernesto lifted his corpse into our garbage can, he was kind of devastated, "I forgot it was there! I looked at it every day!"
I also had completely forgotten about Hubert. Somehow this beautiful plant had become a weird black hole that our vision looked through for 2 weeks. I had no idea he was in such dire straits until his trip to the trash can.
After Hubert's untimely demise, I was ready to give up on plants forever. Bring on more plastic ferns and fake bushes.
But then Bruno arrived.
On my birthday, I got a box delivered. When I opened it, I received a lovely card and a small, potted plant.
"Oh, no," I said to myself. Giving this shining, happy plant to me was like handing over your firstborn to a fairy-tale witch.
I also knew that I would HAVE to take care of this plant. While Louise came into my life as a reject from my mom's house, Bruno was a GIFT. SOMEONE CARED ENOUGH TO SEND IT.
I take accountability to others almost too seriously. I may not have made it through college, but my grandparents were contributing to my tuition, so I went to EVERY class. If it was all on me, Psychology 101 would have been used as nap time. But I owed it to my grandparents to go to every, useless, miserable hour of that lecture.
So it was with Bruno. He was now my sacred duty. My old coworkers sent him to me, and he would survive.
And he is doing okay. Like, would I say thriving… not quite. The best thing that happened to him was when I went out of town for a weekend, and he grew 3 new leaves. Evidently, I'd been smothering him? Now I care too much!
I'm not sure if Bruno will continue to do well; Louise had a golden age before she became an inchworm plant and was tossed into an Edgewater dumpster. Worst-case scenario, if Bruno is forgotten, he'll have company in that big greenhouse in the sky; Hubert, he, and Louise can share their war stories. There may even be a few dust-covered plastic plants of mine that have passed on too.