You know how some of us have those items or structures in our living space that collect clothing?  And I don’t mean a closet or dresser…I mean those unintended items meant for things like running or sitting or keeping you from falling down the stairs.  I think most of us have at least one thing that doesn’t serve its primary purpose and when we finally want it for what we actually own it for, it’s too buried under crap to even bother.

I feel like going for a run…ooohhhh wait, but I don’t feel like putting away all that laundry right now, I guess I won’t run OR tidy up…maybe I will write a blog instead…

So I have one of these items, it’s “the chair” that sits in our bedroom on “my side” of the room.  “The Chair” as it is most commonly referred to holds some tension when brought up in conversation.  This chair has been used so little for it’s primary purpose, I can actually think of each individual interaction I’ve had with it…That time my son and I sat in it, looking out at the passing thunder storm on lightning watch…that time the laundry hamper was stuffed full and so there was no laundry to adorn this seat and I read a few chapters of that novel…or that time when I had some mental clarity when I was regularly meditating and began using the chair to find balance in an over-structured and over-scheduled life.

“The Chair” is also a family heirloom.  My husband’s maternal grandmother, now in her 100th year of life, owned this mid-century modern beauty the first time it was en vogue.  My Mother-in-law gave it to us when we moved 4 years ago and she kept it’s mate.  I often think about giving this seat a new life with some new fabric as the arms are threadbare and it has been well loved and used in it’s lifetime.  It deserves better, certainly, than to be a glorified clothes hanger.

But the chair is also a window, no not a seat in front of a window, an actual window…into my headspace.  If you want to know where I am at, at any given moment in my life, all you need do is sneak a peek at the chair.  It’s hidden in our room for a reason, so not easily accessible to most, but for my husband it can be a valuable tool to gauge where I am at emotionally, spiritually, psychologically so to speak.  That’s a lot to hang on one little chair, no pun intended, I know.  But no less true.

For example, the chair was usually inaccessible while I was teaching because everything else was overwhelming for me, my anxiety a constant reminder to be perfect.  The chair constantly draped in clothing to be laundered and clothing to be put away again, gah…the cycle never ending just looping back into itself…like my anxiety!  Over the past 7 months, however, as my headspace began to clear the chair would sometimes only have a few items on top, perhaps only a jacket draped over the back corner or like right now, a few pairs of shoes tucked underneath.

I think I never committed to recovering the chair because I thought what was the use to go through the trouble only to have it buried under a mountain of clothing emotions.  Well I believe it might be time.  Time to honour the chair with a bright, fun pattern, pulling it away from the blended-in wall that camouflages itself with a similar tone of fabric.  In doing so I will be making a deeper commitment to myself.  I am capable of managing all these emotions, through acknowledgement and action, putting each folded feeling away in a spot where it can exist in my space in a manageable way, rather than just letting them pile up, one on top of the next, losing all sense of control.

“The chair” deserves better because I do.