Today, we get a new couch. It’s the first one that my husband and I have bought together. It’s been built to fit our needs as a family in his new-ish space. For the last three years we have been living with an old, cream leather three-seater that I owned prior to meeting him. It has more than seen its heyday over the last decade.
When I first moved out, it was the first big piece of furniture that I bought for myself. Italian leather (on sale, obviously). And I wanted it to be cream because I hate darkness in my home. It was on the receiving end of many things: quiet days spent reading, brunches with friends, book clubs, movie nights, sick days spent recuperating while watching television and, more recently, playtimes, feedings and sleep-deprivation driven new parent naps.
When I bought it, I was so worried about scratching it up or staining it. I would wipe it down and take such good care of it. Over the last decade it has weathered, sinking ever so slightly towards the middle. The leather, as weathered with fine lines as my own eyes. No doubt from smiling, but still.
I didn’t plan to spend my day writing an ode to a couch. Really it’s not remarkable. What strikes me though, is our proclivity to be drawn to our own creature comforts. We all have them: that old sweater you can’t throw away, the chipped mug you’ve had for ages or that old song that reminds you of someone you love but never see. There comes a time when that item becomes more than the sum of its parts, too small to contain the multitudes that live within it. Certainly two of us are always fighting for space on a long day. Three of us sitting on it looks like we’re waiting for the next bus. So like I hermit crab, we move on to a bigger shell.
It’s only human nature to seek and keep these things. And when we finally decide the memories are to be house elsewhere, we can let them go. Now come the bigger things - ones that hold their own stories. Makes me wonder, in 10 years, what are the things that will require me to make space? Stay tuned.