palahniuk the sage

And I wasn't the only slave to my nesting instinct. The people I know who used to sit in the bathroom with pornography, now they sit in the bathroom with their IKEA furniture catalogue.

I found the perfect bathmat last week. In the screwed up mismatch of colour that is my bathroom, beige is the lone neutral standing bravely against the madness. Buying the plush, perfectly-matched beige mat seemed almost a kindness under the circumstances. Now it catches my eye each time I walk past the bathroom. And I smile with satisfaction each time, too, at how perfectly it matches. Am I in danger? Am I falling softly and slowly, cushioned by soft furnishings, into IKEA madness?

You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.

Though I may be matching home accessories a little too happily and often, I'm pretty sure I'm still some distance from the cliff edge. I'm still using one of the shelves in my hall cupboard as a bookcase. But I do know what my next four purchases will be (kitchen clock, magazine holder, picture frame, bookcase) so maybe I'm creeping closer faster than I thought. O_O'

It used to be enough that when I came home angry and knowing that my life wasn't toeing my five-year plan, I could clean my condominium or detail my car. Someday I'd be dead without a scar and there would be a really nice condo and car.

In the end I'm not so worried that my possessions will come to own me. I'm more scared that finding joy in a bathmat is indicative of a different kind of complacency - one that whispers that my recent quieter life is becoming the whole of me; that soon I won't crave to get out and DO SOMETHING, but instead be satisfied with small plush-piled pleasures. After all, how DOES a person come to a place where they can believe that the right lamp will make them happy? I don't want to die without any scars, having attempted nothing more challenging than ensuring that everyone uses a coaster on my walnut wooden table. I need to do more to keep a sense of bravery and action in my existence.

I say never be complete. I say stop being perfect. I say let's evolve. Let the chips fall where they may.

I like the idea of being a work-in-progress. It leaves room for possiblity.