On the morning of my twenty-eighth birthday, a florist delivered flowers in the shape of a cupcake. The flowers were sitting in a green pot shaped and ribbed to look like a paper cupcake wrapper. Inside it were soft pink carnations with white daisies arranged to look like frosting on the cake and a faux cherry on top. There was a small note attached. The handwriting looked like old-timey cursive, exactly how my aunt’s handwriting looks, and for a moment I thought it was a gift from her. I was so touched when I realized that my boyfriend, Joby, had reached out to a florist to order flowers and have a note delivered to me. I felt a swell of emotion in my heart, and my eyes got watery, which was something new. I typically don’t react like that to gifts or cards.
Joby and I had met through friends one June at a birthday party. When the party moved to a dive bar, we both went along for the sake of appeasing the mutual friends. As two very awkward people, it makes sense that we ended up hovering in the same corner. I asked him what his name was at least five or six times that night. When he asked for my number, I thought it was because he might need information or directions someday or he was being polite.
After our first dates over those next few weeks, the fluttering in my stomach was so intense when I would think about him. It felt very tingly and made my heart race a little—like being on a rollercoaster going up, up, up, right before plunging straight into pure dread. Only this time I didn’t plunge down into anything. It felt like I floated up high for a while, like I was suspended by the inner jolt I felt when he looked at me, the recollection of the surprising softness of his lips that I swore I could still feel afterward, the electricity of his touch, like waves of aftershocks on my skin.
We appear as very different people and are quite opposite on the outside. We don’t have the same taste in lots of things. He wears dark colors like black and gray, and expanses of his skin are tattooed. I would never think something is too florally or hot pink to wear, and Disney World and Twilight have special places in my heart. But sometimes I think about how if humans were created from something, he and I would be from the same exact material. Made up of bits from the same stardust. I might confess something vulnerable, thinking I’m utterly alone in feeling that way, and he will say, “Yes, me too.”
The cupcake flowers came at a good time. Joby and I were just getting along again. When I moved in with him at the beginning of summer, I brought Spanky with me. Joby’s cat, Kittenface, did not like that at all. Already off to a bad start after terrible and hostile first impressions, the next couple of months were even more difficult. We had to keep them in separate rooms for a while. The apartment was tiny, and it felt like a war zone. Spanky seemed depressed and scared. I was mad at Kittenface for being mean to Spanky and in turn mad at Joby for having a cat that was acting so vicious. Joby was frustrated with me for taking it all so personally. I didn’t feel comfortable in the place I was supposed to now call home. Everything was terrible. Moving in together was not at all the exciting, joyous experience I was promised by society. I was immensely jealous of anyone who got that experience, particularly people who had pets that didn’t hate each other. I spent so many days obsessively studying Jackson Galaxy’s tips and clips from My Cat from Hell, scouring reviews of feline pheromone diffusers, and asking Google whether it was okay for people to break up over cats.
We slowly transitioned to supervised visits with the cats. We put them in baby playpens separately so they could see each other at a distance. We also rubbed them down with a shared sock so that they would start to smell like one another. Eventually, they were able to share the same space. They never liked each other, but they were indifferent toward each other most of the time, which was progress.
Later that summer, Joby had surgery, and my feelings toward him shifted back to normal. Instead of thinking of him as the guardian of my nemesis, he was my boyfriend whom I needed and wanted to care for. It cracked the defensive shell I had put up. Maybe that’s why I got emotional a few weeks later when the cupcake flowers arrived with that tender note. It read, “I love you and our life together.” Even though life was messy, we were at least in it together.
The air plant was a treat to myself. It was cute and small with grasslike leaves, light green in color but with a soft wash of white, like the color of sage, and glued to a piece of dark brown driftwood. I bought it at my craft booth neighbor’s tent, while making small talk at the end of the day.
With Spanky, I was very aware of which plants were safe for cats and which were poisonous. After careful research, I had memorized the list. Air plants are safe, but just in case, I still kept this one up high on a shelf. I think the term “helicopter mom” is appropriate here. I didn’t care if it was weird, though.
Our apartment didn’t get much sunlight, especially up high on the shelf near the ceiling, so I’m sure that led to the air plant becoming crunchy and white. I wasted that plant because I worried too much. After going through the trouble of memorizing the toxicity of various plants, I should have relaxed and moved it somewhere sunnier to enjoy it, at least at eye level.
A few days after Valentine’s Day, Joby gave me a lucky bamboo plant as an apology for not really knowing what to do for gifts on holidays. There were three vivid lime-green stalks in an asymmetrical smooth white clay pot. It was exotic and minimalist looking. I kept it on a very high bookcase, which unfortunately didn’t get too much light, but it had to be there because I knew it was poisonous to cats. Joby didn’t know about its toxicity, and he tried to pick out something thoughtful, so I didn’t want to ruin it by making him feel bad.
I’m too hard on Joby, particularly about things that are obviously stupid now, like being disappointed on previous Valentine’s Days. Instead of material gifts, we often spend time together and make memories instead. I now see those are so much more valuable, but I used to compare the lack of material gifts to what I was seeing my friends or acquaintances getting on social media. I was a jerk for doing that, but I compare everything to everyone, and I’m hardest on the people closest to me. I know what is seen online is a glossed-up version of real life, but it still doesn’t stop me. If what I feel doesn’t feel or look like what I’ve seen elsewhere, it doesn’t seem real enough to me. Or it’s not as good. I ruin so many good things that way.
Later that year, I ruined a perfectly nice proposal because it wasn’t what I had expected and it didn’t feel how I had imagined it would feel. When Joby got down on one knee, instead of euphoria, I felt sick and aghast. We hadn’t talked about it. I wasn’t sure I wanted it yet. But I said yes because that’s what you are supposed to do. I felt like I was watching myself from the outside, seeing myself be like a robot. Most people cry from happiness, but I was about to cry from dread. I thought I should be ecstatic to spread the news, but instead I wanted to hide under the blankets forever and not tell anyone. I was engaged for approximately two hours before I had to tell him I needed to change my mind to a “not a yes, but a not now.” I couldn’t imagine myself faking enthusiasm for being engaged when I felt that much panic inside me. So we waited a year, and then I told him over breakfast at a diner that if he wanted to ask me again, I would very much be okay with that. When it happened soon after, it wasn’t perfect, but I let it go before I went and ruined it all again and because I should give the poor guy a break already. He got down on his knee again (because I asked him to), and I was wearing pajamas and had to pull the night guard out of my mouth to say yes. It was not what I had always envisioned. But he had waited for me. Of course he did. Not once did he make me feel bad for the feelings I felt, even when it hurt him. I wonder why I would ever compare him to anything. I think about moments like this, and I sometimes cringe for how I judged them. But I do not regret taking the extra time to say “yes.” I’ve learned that big change rattles me more. I’m sorry that I hurt him in the process of figuring this out, but I just take longer. Things have to percolate awhile in me. Decisions are crippling sometimes. Despite all of that about me, his feelings for me never seem to falter. For all of my doubts, he is sure of me.
I am learning to calm the twitch I feel to run when things are scary or hard. I often felt like my metaphorical bags were always packed for a quick escape. I’d be ready to leave before I got left. If I felt I wasn’t being heard, or if he did something that I thought was annoying, or if he said something that made me go from zero to sixty with assumptions, I thought, “I don’t need this, and I don’t need anyone.” I have a tendency to want to cut off anything that hurts or scares me. But I am learning to sit with it. It always passes, and there are moments on the other side that I can’t imagine having skipped out on. That bamboo was pretty lucky after all.
I really did not like our apartment at all. It was dark and small and always had a weird smoky smell. I bought a few plants to help it feel cozier. I picked out a hanging spider plant and a Boston fern basket at Lowe’s. The fern was bushy and a deep forest green. It reminded me of the ferns I’ve seen in the forests when Joby and I went for hikes. I brought it home, and like all the others, it lived high up on a shelf, but I managed to keep it alive a long time.
Late one night, I heard Spanky panting. His body was failing, and he couldn’t move well. I told Joby we needed to go to the vet. Joby helped scoop him up and put him in the cat carrier on top of a quilt my mom had made for me. At the vet, I rested my face inches from Spanky’s while I tried to soothe him. I kept repeating “It’s okay” over and over and over while I kissed his small face until he died. I didn’t know what else to say. I was saying it for him, but now I see I was also saying it for me. In the moments after, while the vet explained things that I didn’t hear about what would happen next, I kept thinking how cruel and unfair it was that Spanky had to go somewhere and I couldn’t go with him. I wanted to be wherever he was. Oh, my heart. The piece that I had imagined had permanently resided in him had died along with him, like my heart could sense that that piece was never coming back. My insides felt irreparably shattered from watching something I loved so deeply die in pain. He was only nine years old.
I was always aware of his mortality. Even when he was young and healthy, I was dreading the day he couldn’t be here anymore. I maybe should have pushed that thought away, to more fully enjoy his presence instead of letting that dread taint the edges of the experience. I was trying to prepare, but I also thought I had more time. My friend has a Kurt Vonnegut quote framed in her apartment that goes “I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.’” I repeat it to myself often, when I feel so consumed with gratefulness for being alive and present in a certain moment. I would nuzzle my face on Spanky’s face and think about this quote so many times. I would breathe in his scent, hug him, trying to imprint how his tiny, fuzzy body felt and preserve how his sweet little face looked, because I knew someday those memories would have to do when I missed him. I tried to memorize everything about him. I tried to prepare myself. It didn’t stop the crushing grief that rushed in and stayed.
The Boston fern had to be thrown away after Spanky died. It dried up and turned brown and crumbled to the touch. It could have been something to distract me from not being able to take care of Spanky anymore, but it wasn’t a substitute. Nothing ever would be. I was devastated when Spanky died. For months after it happened, I went through the motions of daily life, but days felt like periods of time I had to be patient through until I could sleep and be unconscious again. I didn’t care about much, especially not about keeping a plant alive.
That summer, I went to Costa Rica with two very dear friends. The trip became something to look forward to again, something to nudge away the heavy, aching nothingness that clung to me. We researched zip-lining activities and coffee tours. I thought about having a change of scenery and being enveloped by quiet, peaceful nature. It was a welcome distraction.
Near a gift shop in the small mountain town of Monteverde, there was a row of stunning blue hydrangea bushes. The bushes were abundant and tall, and the lush, fluffy blooms were the prettiest sky blue. I was surprised to see those flowers because I didn’t realize they grew in other parts of the world. Often when I travel, I have the feeling that I’m on another planet and time is working differently. I feel ungrounded when I’m surrounded by so many unfamiliar things. I need to travel like I need to breathe, but with each trip there is always wistfulness and loneliness mingled in. Finding small connections that remind me of home in various corners of the world helps to ground me. Seeing flowers I’ve seen at home while feeling so far away from home was a peaceful connection that soothed me.
We had lunch at a table outside near those flowering bushes. We sat on weathered stone benches around a mossy stone table. We had learned the word for “to go” in Spanish, basically through a game of charades at the café when buying food. We had a pretty good combined knowledge of Spanish from years of studying in high school and college, but sometimes we had trouble with colloquial terms. I might sound like a five-year-old with how I cobble together sentences, but it is so satisfying when someone understands you in a different language, even if a game of charades was necessary.
We all were turning thirty that year, and we thought a vacation together would be a great way to celebrate and to distract ourselves from the scariness of entering a new decade. I barely wore any makeup for the entire trip, and I valued comfort over style with all of my outfits. Not once did I care how I looked. Noticing that while on the trip was freeing. There was nobody to impress, and that was extremely refreshing. I could simply be.
Life can feel a lot like one long adventure, traveling from moment to moment. There are points when I feel ungrounded in life, like when I travel and I must find things that are familiar or nostalgic to pull me back and plant my feet firmly down. I am growing hydrangeas at my own house now, along with other various plants that remind me of past pleasant moments in time.
