It is so easy to get stuck in a rut, isn’t it? We live our daily lives and one day passes, then another, and they march on in a seemingly infinite line without much change from day to day. But sometimes, just the littlest change can make a huge improvement in our outlook and mental well-being.
I don’t want to be a Pollyanna. I don’t want to play the Glad Game or always look on the bright side. I usually wish to shoot people like that. But let me tell you about the change we made at our house last week and the difference it has made for me.
We bought a new couch. I know you’re thinking, “Whoop-de-doo.” But no, really, it has lifted me out of my rut. Let me back up a bit and explain.
When we first moved in together ten years ago, Kosta and I bought a couch. It was from a cheapy furniture store and the couch stayed intact for about a year before the frame started breaking down. My Dad, bless him, tried to shore it up and found the damn thing had been put together not with wood screws but with staples. But we didn’t have the money to drop on a new, well-made couch, so we just sucked it up and lived with it. Broken. For ten years. We both said we would much rather have a trip to Europe than a new couch.
The couch slowly sagged into its spot. We stuck pillows under the cushions to bolster us but it became cranky and carnivorous. It would eat you ass first if you sat on it. It was an awful situation that was really at the center of our home lives. We sat on it every day and it made us sad and frustrated.
Last weekend I’d had enough. I told Kosta we were going couch shopping. We aren’t going on a big trip this year and living with this half-sofa was killing us. So we decided on a budget and went to the consignment shops. Naples has a lot of them and they are filled usually with pretty decent furniture.
We walked around downtown and popped into stores. There were some that were nice but too expensive, some that were the right price but not what we wanted. There were a couple that were okay, but I wasn’t going to plop down money for something that was just okay. Consignment shops turn over pretty fast, especially this time of year when the snowbirds all go back north for the summer. I knew if we waited the right couch for us would come along.
It was getting late and we had one store left. We walked inside and boom, there it was, just waiting for us. It was blue like the Aegean, it looked brand new, and it was within our budget. I was instantly smitten and Kosta seemed pleased with it too. Up to this point all the couches had been in neutral colors – beige, and white (who gets a white sofa, I ask you???) and an occasional gold. But this sofa sat like a glittering sapphire in a field of blah.
And then we found out they were having a sale and that everything in the store that day was half off. I had to sit down. Fortunately the sofa was extremely comfortable too. We didn’t have to think very hard about it.
True, we had to pay to have it moved (it’s a sofa bed and extremely heavy), but that was nominal, and when you get a sofa for HALF PRICE it doesn’t hurt so much. We bought it Saturday, hauled the tired old sofa to the curb Sunday night, and had the new one in place Monday afternoon.
It all worked so easily that I am still stunned by it. And grateful. Because that new sofa has transformed our living room. It has transformed us. We aren’t embarrassed by its presence. We can have people over again and sit on it without being consumed. We love admiring it, sitting on it, and feeling happy that it is there.
And now that we have that in place we want to do more. We are looking for an area rug next. I am going to mosaic some lamps. A fire has been kindled by something so simple as a new piece of furniture. And if I had kept thinking, “We can’t afford a new sofa” this never would have happened.
Sometimes you have to give yourself a kick in the arse. It’s amazing where you can land.
Anna Karras 