Patricia

Two months ago, I had some time to kill and decided to quickly pop into the local ReStore. I wasn’t looking for anything particular; I was just excited about our soon-to-be new home. It hasn’t quite sunk in that it would soon be ours and I found an obvious solution to that was to buy something specifically for the new house. In my mind, it would feel more real if I spent money decorating our future home— the one we still ran the risk of losing but that’s only a minor detail.

Anyway, as I was saying. I walk into the massive warehouse and, just like the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, perched right in front of me under a halo-like glow of florescent light, sat a sofa that I’ve never been more sure was destined to be mine. It was dingy. It was a depressed shade of beige. And it did not smell very good. It needed a good dose of love and vision but the potential was there. So, like a moth to a flame, I ignored the slightly stale stench that wafted over me when I plopped down onto the well-worn cushions and tore the tag off with lightning speed, as if there was a stampede of other delusional new homeowners itching to get their paws on a pathetic beige sofa. It set me back—pausing for reaction— a whopping sixty-five dollars.

This exquisite piece of work is that same little sofa that could. She now claims her rightful place sitting in our new sitting room centered under a large trio of windows that let in such beautiful natural light throughout the day. Her name is Patricia. (I name my furniture, by the way. And my plants, too, but that’s neither here nor there.) Patricia is no longer sad nor does she deter unsuspecting visitors with her hard-to-place stench. Is it cigarette smoke? Is it body odor? Is it corn chips? I’ll guess we’ll never know.

She is swathed in a cozy and refined shade of green velvet called fern. Why velvet, you may be wondering? What a silly question. Like there was any other respectable option for a sofa as regal as Patricia! A queen of her majestic stature demands to be clothed in nothing but the best and nothing says rest your ass on my cushions quite as eloquently as green velvet.

Welcome home, Patricia. I hope you’re as happy here as I am to have you!

change

I used to be afraid of change.

I avoided it at all costs and found that change deeply unnerved me. It felt threatening to my emotional equilibrium. It broke down the walls of stability I’d spent my life creating, making me uncomfortably vulnerable. The scale of an impending change that loomed in front of me mattered not. Whether it be a slight change of timing or switch of evening plans or the death of a loved one— no matter the circumstances, any change I faced would inevitably be a catalyst for an existential crisis, leading me to question everything and everyone and whether or not I could count on anything of permanence when it could so easily change with the snap of a finger. For one reason or another, I spent my life believing that predictability equaled dependability and dependability equaled safety. Naturally, I became conditioned to crave and thrive when I felt securely wrapped within a warm cocoon of routine, predictability, and a very black and white outlook on life.

But then life changed. Like, really changed. And, as a result, I changed, too.

At age nineteen, I was set up with a twenty-one year old man whose life I almost immediately (and rather terrifyingly) pictured being intertwined with my own for as long as we both shall live. Naturally, he didn’t. We dated for a few years only to break up a few times, igniting existential quarter-life crisis #1 and #2. As you could have guessed, we ultimately made up and made Marlo in August of 2011. The day after my birthday in March of the following spring, we asked a judge to legally bind us together as partners even though we had felt like family for years. Our daughter was born in May. Hubby got accepted into NYU in August and, on December 13th, 2012, away we went. We left both of our families in the middle of winter to the one city in the world where you can ache of isolation and feel suffocated by claustrophobia simultaneously. Did I mention we did this all with an infant? And while I was very much suffering from severe postpartum depression? In the following two years, I managed to require two emergency organ removals, lost an alarming amount of weight, became a shell of my former self, threatened divorce as a result of my unhappiness, then worked like hell to pull myself together. And I did— at least as much as I could manage to function only to very quickly get pregnant with our second baby.

As the years spent in New York unfolded, most of the time I felt as if I were in survival mode— merely taking the gut punches of change life kept throwing at me and tried to remain afloat. Much to my surprise, I survived. Through hindsight, I’ve come to realize that while that chapter of my life was impossibly complicated and often felt paralyzingly terrifying, change can’t kill you. Over time, I even came to learn that it can even become a form of liberation and a bottomless well of excitement and personal growth when you’re brave enough to step outside of your comfort zone

Which brings me to today and my recent decision to paint our living room walls pink.

For the almost three and a half years after we moved back to Charlotte from Brooklyn, the majority of the walls in my century-old home were a delightful shade of gray. When we bought our home in 2015 on a wine buzz-induced whim off of the internet and site unseen, slathering the interior of the house in any of the four million different shades of gray felt safe. I considered white only to remember that I have children and I don’t particularly fancy spending the bulk of my day scrubbing peanut butter, goldfish crumbs, and feces-covered fingerprints off of of the bedroom walls. So, gray it was. Gray Owl, specifically, and for the bulk of these last three-plus years, I’ve never regretted going gray. Then, recently, I found myself feeling indescribably annoyed and filled with an almost physical dread every time I’d walk into our living room. I couldn’t seem to shake it. Then, one random afternoon, I walked into the living room and, like most epiphanies do, it finally came to me: I needed change. I was physically craving it and the magnetic pull to switch things up was unshakeable.

And so I did. I chose the color and painted the walls pink, never once questioning myself nor attempt to talk myself out of it even though I couldn’t be further from a pink kind of girl. And you know what?!? I FUCKING LOVE IT!! It is nearly if not completely impossible to walk into my living room and feel anything other than unbridled happiness.

(It’s still growing on Joe. Which may or may not have something to do with having conveniently left out the specific chosen color when we discussed painting the room but I am a firm believer that it’s always better to ask for forgiveness than permission so. Personally, I think he’ll learn to love it…)

All of this just to say that, ultimately, embracing change isn’t just about stepping outside of your comfort zone. Rather, elective change is standing firmly behind an intentional commitment to vulnerability and expanding beyond what feels safe and easy. As inconsequential and frivolous as painting my walls pink is, I’ve still found personal growth in listening to what my body was telling me and taking the opportunity to do something about it by embracing a new direction that felt less safe than it’ predecessor. Sometimes, saying “FUCK IT!” and simply going for it feels better than hiding behind your own self-imposed parameters that could be preventing you from feeling high on fucking life at the sight of your new living room walls.

Change is scary.

But change can also be really fucking exhilarating and, on occasion, really, really pretty.