soopastryheart

Attachment can be a funny thing, especially when you realize that the sentiment is being wasted on inanimate objects.

I am sitting here on this well-beaten, poor excuse of a couch from Ikea, completely exhausted from moving all the furniture I have in this tiny apartment to the front door. They are the furniture I am now and most likely, forever parting with. There’s the mattresses my parents bought for me for my very first apartment four years ago, looking just as new as it had that first day with the plastic wrap (further evidence of my sleep depravity/insomniac tendencies). There’s the swivel chair that accompanied my ass through high school when I’d stay up until two in the morning because of a writing binge, and then ever so faithfully followed me to college where it accompanied my ass until two in the morning while I studied for organic chemistry and/or wrote my Nietzsche midterm (the consistency of writing about Nietzsche is that whether it’s written at 10am with 8 hours of sleep in you or at 3am with a migraine, it’s all going to come out dripping in uncertainty and bullshit). There’s the chipped mugs, the bottom-charred pots and pans (not from frequent use, but more because of my utter lack of culinary common sense), and a television that weighs more than I do.

There’s some cheap crap in here that I purchased with the idea of a bargain; why spend a lot of money on things I’d depart within a few years anyway? More than half the items in my kitchen were handed down to me by my mother (probably same half that I barely used). But no matter how cheap or poorly-made a 2 dollar spatula was, I’m finding it ever increasingly difficult to pack it all away. All those things; the towel rack that I never really finished putting together properly (like all those bolts were supposed be used anyway), and the toaster oven that almost caught fire (twice), they were all memories during my transition into adulthood. I never thought I’d become such a nostalgic sap, especially for such mundane household items, but is it really so weird to miss the oversized coffee cup that helped you through so many all-nighters?

There are two piles being separated right now: the items that are going in storage for Ki, and the items that are being overpacked into boxes to be shipped home. And as I look out in to the sea of excessively taped boxes, I realize that this is my life, and has been my life for the better part of this last decade. These boxes are holding everything – who I’ve become, and who I’ve left behind.

But see, that’s ridiculous too. I cannot be defined by what I’ve chosen to pack in these boxes (especially since there’s a particularly embarrassing short Abercrombie skirt from my frat-hopping days). Maybe the abandonment guilt that I’m feeling right now is to be expected, not only because I am losing these items, but because leaving them behind represents that I really am doing this, that I really am picking up the life I’ve established here and have become accustomed to start over in an entirely new setting. Maybe then, it’s not nostalgia I’m feeling, but unsettlement for an uncertain future that suddenly looks three times more unpredictable.

Or maybe it’s the fact that I haven’t slept through a night without waking up at least three times in nearly a month.

The thought of having to replace these items at a later time seems like such a huge burden to me right now. Maybe I will be at a point (emotionally and financially) where I won’t have to scour Target and Craigslist to fill up the space. But whether the table is from Pottery Barn or a garage sale, new memories will be created, and a new stage in my life will be established.

These things are, after all, just things. I break wine glasses more often than I’d like to admit, but no matter how disappointed I feel at the time, they are easily replaceable. And if I were to keep this Ikea couch for another five or six years (right, because when you think long-lasting, Ikea comes to mind), it would mean I’ve been idle, and no progression or change has occurred.

Still, I’ve shared a lot of great memories around this coffee table.