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Well, here I am back at work. I'm actually earlier than usual today because I couldn't leave the alarm running to wake up the guests. *sigh* That means I get to leave earlier than usual right? Right?
Anyway, back to work..
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We went out to dinner that night with a bunch of girl's old highschool pals. The meal was fairly good, as steak goes in this part of the world. Afterward was the Kris Kringle and we used some stealing rules: twice per gift per round. Well, I've never heard of these rules before, but it was quite interesting nonetheless. Anyway, it made the whole situation much more interesting, since we all kept trying to steal KK's gift (money for life!), and everyone avoided my lawnchair since it looked like a big ham. (Heck, what could fifteen dollars get that was that large? It was a low cash to volume ration for that thing - so it seemed to them.) Well, when it was my turn to pick/steal, I ended up getting the object that I stole (KK's gift) and picked a new present. I happened to grab a multiple box present. Inside was something called a "Love Bulb".
It's actually quite cool. The bulbs have filiments which are shaped like flowers, and when you plug the bulb into the flowerpot shaped socket (and add electricity) it glows in the purples, reds, and greens you'd expect from normal flowers. It really is cool. Anyway, it got stolen from me by TL so I stole it back. Now people thought I was being vindictive and I eventually relented and gave the bulbs to her after the Kris Kringle, but those bulbs reminded me of something.
Long ago, when I was still in second year, there was a girl who I really liked at that time (and have liked for may years before and afterward). I have never told her how I felt, then nor now, becuase.. I liked her too much. It's my greatest weakness, and I'm only now confronting that aspect of my personality, but I digress.
I visited her a number of times (just a few) while I was still an undergrad. I enjoyed spending time with her even though we didn't spend a lot of time together. After one such trip she asked me if I wanted to take home a lightbulb plant. It was basically a spider plant which she had placed into an inverted lightbulb. She had a bunch of them hanging by her window and she gave one of them to me to take home. So I did. I took it home with me and took good care of it.
I hadn't owned a plant before that point. We have a whole plethora of green companions at my parent's place, but it's my dad who keeps watering them and taking care of them. I never had anything to do with their maintenance. So this was all new to me, but it was a spider plant. They're hardy, they don't need a lot of water, and they are hard to kill.
After a couple of months, I noticed that the plant was getting awfully large, and decided to take it out of the lightbulb and put it into a real pot. I stole a pot and some soil from GB, smashed the bulb, moved the plant to it's new home. I was told later by her that I wasn't supposed to remove the plant from the bulb, but how was I supposed to know that?
Over time I got distracted by school, events, and other things, and slowly began to neglect my little spider plant. It still stayed on my window sill, absorbing what sunshine it could, and stayed there until we moved out of the house and went to WCRI. That's when I noticed how brown and sickly it became, so I tried to water it diligently from that point on. One small part of the plant still alive, and began to grow again. Just a little. But again, school and other commitments drew my time and attention away from my green companion and the next time I noticed it later that year, I knew that it was too late to save it.
I threw out what of what was left of the plant: the burnt leaves, shrivled roots and the powdery soil that was left in the pot. I left the rest of it behind when I moved away and I never asked for another one.
I haven't owned a plant since then. A combination of fear and regret has prevented me from obtaining another plant to take care of. I sometimes think of that plant, and what I should've done. Much the same about other things in life, there are so many what if's and mistakes that we wished we had never made. But I know now that it's the mistakes the define who we are, and that my greatest mistake was not to take action.
I wonder, if that plant was still alive, how would my life have been different?
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