The Couch
This week, a friend of mine bought a couch.
This doesn't seem like blog-worthy news. Most people I know own couches. You probably own a couch.
What's remarkable, I suppose, is that this couch did not come from craigslist or Goodwill or the side of the road. She bought it, like, from a catalog. She ordered fabric samples. She's having it delivered.
And even that is not remarkable, really. I know people who own nice furniture. But those people are Married People. They have spouses and careers and they are living their Real, Official Lives. This friend is unmarried and, like me, is still figuring out her professional path.
A year or so ago, she told me she'd decided not to wait. She realized, years before I did, that she was living in-between things, holding a space in a crack in the wall, waiting for a man or a job or a child or whatever the thing would magically be that would give her permission.
So she stopped waiting. And now she has a couch.
I don't own real furniture. I don't put paint on the walls. I've been saying this for years and for years, but every time I think to change, something in my gut says no. I have this sense that this is not my Real Life. I am living an Intermission Life, a Pre-Life before the main event. And at any moment, my train could arrive, you know? The one that takes me there from here. And if I get the chance to go, I don't want a thousand-dollar couch weighing me down.
This strikes me as a strange way to live.
And so I wonder: maybe this is the crux of it. As I typed that, I almost started crying, which is probably because my period is starting in three days, but is also because I've hit on something true. If my Real Life isn't here, and I can't imagine a happy scenario in which it is, then why am I here?
Shouldn't I be in a place where it feels safe to buy a couch?
I was on the tip of it last fall. The fall before last. I was moving to the Bay area with a man whose dreams were as real as mine, and it felt like my train had finally come. But he changed his mind and I think the moral to this story, if there is one at all, is that no one should be driving that train but me.
What makes this confusing: I love Madison. I'm thankful for this city almost every day of my life. That counts for something, I know. There are a hundred thousand studies that tell us our happiness is based on these small things: the light over the river, a familiar face in the cereal aisle. The warmth of a friend's kitchen. I'm happy here, on the whole.
But maybe happiness isn't my goal. You know what I mean?
I keep thinking this will all work out, but I think the moral to this story, if there is one, is that I'm the one who has to work.
