I’m typing this essay in a cafe, surrounded by a group of writers. The room hums with chatter, so I’ve got my AirPods on, my left hand on a cup of cappuccino, the other tapping the keyboard. I should feel grateful someone organised this Meetup for amateur writers like me. Yet Ms K, the organiser, shows a disengaged, I-don’t-care attitude. I won’t come back next week.

The thought “I don’t want this, so I won’t do it” still feels like a miracle for me. For most of my life, I’ve been like a jester entertaining kings who could never truly understand me. Looking back at the self-created stage, I wonder, “Why? Is that what I wanted?”.

I enjoy suffering. This sounds unhinged, but I’m not alone — just more honest than most. When walking through parks and talking to myself, I trace it all back to the first time I had no other choice than to enjoy the pain: my birth. All the following upbringing has also been a (more or less) successful adjustment to the conditions of living with my parents. I still often adjust to them — in my inner world.

My day-to-day life sometimes feels like a fight with paranoia. When attending an A1.1 German course in the best language school in Vienna, I felt primal fear at mein Lehrer’s gaze: one mistake — and I get beaten. Old wounds don’t care about new contexts. My eye twitched, my shoulders shook — Verhandlung mit meine Paranoia:

A: I can walk away. This isn’t childhood.
P: Aber das Leiden ist deine Muttersprache! Du hast viel Spaß, oder?
A: Nein!

The ghost of my father wins again. “Auf Wiedersehen!” from our teacher, warm Viennese wind … Waiting for the U-Bahn, my analytical mind questions me: “Why do I still bear this cross inside of my soul? Recalling this again after so many years …“. Only then did I realise: these hardcore study sessions were the closest thing we had together.

Children do not want pain — they long for love from their parents. Nor do they know what affection is until they experience it — the inevitability of enjoyment, or what Lacan calls “jouissance”. Masochism is not about getting off from suffering — more about getting off from the person who makes us suffer. Realising this “adhesion” was the first time I saw the cage. Later came the decision: pleasure myself, not the ghosts.

It was amidst the crisis with Ms M — her sterile scalpel and pushy authority — that I realised how much I needed another kind of love. Not the kind that demands “performance”, but which develops on its own. Not the kind rooted in hyper-control, but based on care and attention. Ultimately, the one making me feel safe. The answer was always there: grow flowers.

I called my orchid Rose — after the flower in “The Little Prince” that learns love isn’t about being “special”, but rather being chosen. This particular quote lingers in my mind:

There might be millions of roses in the whole world, but you’re my only one, unique rose.

I got increasingly anxious when several of Rose’s buds withered. Was my love not enough? Was I narrow-minded to see just a Phalaenopsis hybride and not Rose in my pot?

This is komisch to admit to my readers, but I didn’t invent anything better than talking with my orchid. I also remained consistent in my care towards her, keeping a keen eye on her roots to know what she needs. Rose told me when to water her by turning her roots into the silver colour, which I found more trustworthy than following some hard-coded “rules”. Two months later, she blossomed again. Was I finally listening to my own roots as well?

There was another discomfort I couldn’t shake — accepting people being different. My deep sensitivity takes rejection as a childhood tribunal: “What have I done wrong?”. The solution arrived naturally: an Anthurium clarinervium called Igor, whose needs have no resemblance with Rose’s. She craves sun — he loves shade. She blossoms often — he grows slowly. She loves shower watering — he may die if watered excessively. The difference doesn’t feel like a failure — just life.

This post is shorter than previous ones and not as polished — it needn’t be. Flowers feel when you care about them and even if you skip several days of watering — c’est la vie :)