The Story of My Orchid
The story of my white orchid flower that came back from the dead.
Hello lovely,
I know I said that I was only going to send an email out quarterly based on the seasons, but I just wanted to share with you my orchid and tell you her story.
My mom bought me this plant sometime back in late 2020/early 2021 when we were all deep into lockdowns. She thought it was pretty and that it might brighten up my room. She got it from Whole Foods. It came in this tiny 4-inch pot and all it was was a long stem with a couple of white blossoms sitting in a bed of two thick leaves. It was a tiny little thing.
I had it in that little pot for a bit before it died. All of the little white blossoms fell off and soon the long stem turned brown. By late 2021, it was merely a plant of thick green leaves.
I eventually repotted it into a bigger pot and clipped the dead stem. I figured that while the flowers died, I could still enjoy having a leafy plant. I knew absolutely nothing about plants, so I honestly didn’t know what I was doing. I had resigned to the belief that this little orchid plant will never bloom again. So I moved the pot to my windowsill and continued to forget to water it, so it only got watered once every two weeks.
My orchid was dormant for all of 2022. If you know about My Heart Journey, you’d know that I was emotionally struggling throughout all of 2022. My partner at the time had completely abandoned our 1-year relationship and failed to communicate that with me. No formal breakup or anything. He took advantage of his job that had him traveling a lot and simply stopped speaking to me. I received no answers to any of my texts, voice messages, emails, or letters. It was like he died, yet he was very much still alive.
Something broke within me and I was just devastated. It felt very much like a death and I found myself grieving. I was also lost and confused because none of it made sense. yet the only person who could help me make sense of it refused to talk to me, so I was truly alone. And all this time, my little orchid was there, bare and dormant.
I can’t possibly say when my orchid began to bloom again. It seems like it happened overnight. Sometime in late December of 2022, I looked up at the orchid on my windowsill and noticed it had a new stem. Then a few days later it had a few buds. Then a few days after that it had begun to bloom. By mid-January of 2023, it looked as if it had never died at all.
And I took that as a sign.
I took it as a sign from the Universe that there were better days ahead. That maybe 2023 was my year—my year to heal, to unravel, and to grow. I just have to complete my cycle.
Orchids are apparently notoriously hard to take care of, so all the more reasons why I saw it as a sign. They symbolize love, purity, and faith—all things I felt that I lacked but I found that I needed in order to get through one of the toughest experiences of my life. The love in my heart that I didn’t want to dim, the fresh start I was about to take on, and the faith I had to have in the Universe to make it through.
My orchid bloomed again at the start of this year.
I’ve figured out that may be her cycle—once a year, at the start of the year. But I like to think of it as her personally saying to me, “Good luck this year. Just know in your heart that you got this! Everything will be okay. For, after all, I did bloom again.”
And I just wanted to share her with you today. Because I know the world is a mess right now and I know we are all going through our own personal struggles—no matter how big or small—and I want to offer up the hope that you will bloom again. Everything will be okay. I invite you to have and hold trust together with me; we can go on this journey side by side together.
xx Tiffany
✩ Reading: 11 Paper Hearts by Kelsey Hartwell; The Trouble with Shooting Stars by Meg Cannistra
✩ Watching: Love Actually, The Crown (Season 6)
✩ Listening: 1989 (Taylor's Version) by Taylor Swift
✩ Discovering: Susannah Conway's Unravel Your Year + Find Your Word workbooks
✩ Things to Explore This Season: journaling in cozy cafes ✩ Hallmark Channel movies ✩ card making ✩ reading by the fireplace ✩ knit scarves & fuzzy socks ✩ baking cookies ✩ setting intentions ✩ creating a vision board
What are you most looking forward to in 2024?
You can respond to this prompt as a free write, create a bucket list of activities you'd like to do, or write a list of your intentions for the new year.
Unfurling is a creative journaling class where you learn to explore yourself through a multifaceted creative process combining art, photography, and creative journaling.
This course is all about starting and keeping what I like to call an Unraveling Journal. I invite you to come and explore yourself with me in order to discover, heal, and grow.
Registration is now open!
