I am dab hand at moving house. I've moved from here to there so many times over the last 5 years you need both hands to count the many times. Some would say gypsy, I say nomad and searcher. I'm pretty proud of my moving boxes and labelling expertise, which is not to say I like it or feel anything even resembling like, but I am good at it. This is adulting the hard way as us newlyweds move house, buy furniture and build the dreaded flat packs; dystopia has been found in a furniture store.
Adulting as I have taken to calling it now is pretty tough and unforgiving. Growing up is something we all have endure unless you've opted out of adulthood for a Peter Pan type lifestyle and may I say, lucky you! There's no doubt of how appealing the latter is and after the labor-ious Labor day Weekend we have just experienced, the attractiveness of Peter Pan's eternal youth free from responsibilities and maturing is ever increasing.
I and we (my husband and I) have adulted a lot over the last four weeks and we have the grey hairs to prove it. We moved house and purchased all of our furniture over a three day blitz. Hours were spent in Urban Home, West Elm, CB2 and IKEA. I am proud to admit that there were no tears and only an average amount of tantrums. We are a united front and we managed to get a few laughs in there too. There was however a lot unsaid but spoken through gaping eyes filled with a mixture of irritation and disbelief; sounds of very audible sighs accompanied by an unusual amount of tongue biting. Furniture stores give promise of a better life-style, a nicer life, a happy home, a utopia of sorts but what you end up getting in-store through scowls and bargaining, somewhere between living room furnishings and the bedroom or if you're lucky enough to make it to the marketplace is your own personal dystopia. Don't even mention wandering these aisles on a weekend day. Heaven help us. Wouldn't they be better including in the serving of their customers, a stiff drink, a therapy suite out back and a chapel for prayer? The exodus from this furniture hunt, our man made paradise lost resulted in the faintest of battle scars. We survived and came out relatively unharmed, with a mild migraine, the silent treatment, a flushed face, swollen ankles and lighter pockets.
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| a battle scar |
Midst our moving we discussed through gritted teeth the want versus need of purchasing cable television. I want, he doesn't, he's won... for now. The battle of wills just beginning in our beautiful and youthful marriage. I'm finding myself standing in this place called middle ground. I am stubborn, the eldest of four, number one I keep reminding him. He's an only child, "number only one" my sister sarcastically responds when I relay my tales of the day. We shall overcome. I'm learning a lot. I am completely in awe of my husband's patience and good humour and can only hope some of it rubs off on me and about myself, I can throw a tantrum like the best of them. Only poor me, it's not socially acceptable for a twenty something, alright then a thirty odd year old. Instead I'm forced to wander around with a resting so and so face. Only my face is not so resting at all.
As I said I think choosing to adult is optional however I'm one for these so called social norms and I love my husband and being married and therefore have very much opted in. What I have learned this past month about maturing, marriage and moving is that all three "M's" do not coexist harmoniously and unconditionally but that they can. We are trying a civil rights type movement in our marriage of integrating the three peacefully between number one and number only one with fairness and through communication of using our words, this being a new concept for me, and we are abiding by some wise old adage about compromise. This is how we adult.
And as we sit at the end of the day exhausted and delighted with ourselves, cuddled together with a glass of wine, on our new couch surrounded by our new things, we seem to have forgotten the snarls of the day in all the furniture stores until someone (me) mentions with enthusiasm about picking out bathroom mats tomorrow and a new storage unit. Suddenly a silence descends upon the room, simultaneously we remember the happenings of the day and unanimously agree, we won't darken the doorway of a furniture shop for a while to come. Let the dust settle under our new rug.
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