Becoming Real

I bought a couch (a pink couch, it was maroon) for $200.00. I was 19 years old. It was my first real purchase (besides beer, gas and mini market food stuffs). My Dad carried it up four flights of stairs into my first apartment (he had some help, I think). He set it down inside the four walls, let out a big sigh and then promptly sat down upon it. I yelled some expletive. He looked puzzled. I finally got him to get up. He was too dirty of course to sit on my brand new couch. He had been helping me move all morning and of course was not in any shape to sit down.

The same feelings crossed my mind when the furnace guy began writing up an estimate for a new furnace (now 27 years old you would have thought I had learned something). He asked for a pen and then sat at my expensive dining room table and began to write. The hardness in which he wrote out his numbers caused me great alarm and I quickly jumped to hand him a magazine so that the indentation would not make a permanent mark on my glossy table. He looked puzzled.

Now 30 years old, my kitchen was being remodeled. The newly finished hardwood floors in our kitchen had yet to be fully installed when the cabinet man came to hang the brand new cabinets and hook up the refrigerator. My Love told the man that if he scratched the floor a divorce would probably follow shortly. The man looked puzzled.

A few weeks later I attempted to reach too far up to remove a silver platter from atop the refrigerator and it fell. It crashed into the newly finished wood floor and made a huge indentation. I was sick. This was only the beginning.

Six years later I watched as my oh-so-not-little bundle of joy (who by the way is going to be 3 next month!) sat at the dining room table and scribbled with a pen (that I had given her) onto a piece of paper. This of course made an indentation into my dining room table. I didn't hand her a magazine to put under her drawing. I was indifferent to the harm she was causing.

Over the last couple of years there have been many, upon many mishaps. Things that I have treasured have been ruined or simply redecorated. Items that I hold close and even my relationships with friends (for that matter my relationship with my Love) have been rearranged. They have taken a beating.

Tonight my almost three year old wanted to read the Velveteen Rabbit before going to bed. I hadn't read it in years. As I finished the book tears came to my eyes. Is this how it feels to be real, I wondered? Bruised, battered, flattened, scribbled upon, scratched, dirtied, emptied, used, loved? No one had ever sat down upon that pink couch before my Dad (with his dirty jeans) sat on it. Yes, it was beautiful, but it was stiff and too clean. My wood floors were perfect, my table immaculate. Me, I was put together neatly. But none of these things were truly cared for, truly loved. Couches should be sat upon. Wood floors should be walked upon. Tables should be eaten upon and used for any type of requirement. Relationships should have depth. The wear and tear of everyday life should show. I am not a perfectly put together person. I am loved. I, in turn love others. Bumps and bruises are bound to happen.