Objects That I Own/love

When I was a teenager, my dresser broke. When young, you never question the furniture in your room or how your parents came to own it. It simply exists and you use it until you move out. This dresser was garbage and falling apart so my mom gave me an IKEA catalogue and asked me to find a replacement. I had never shopped for furniture before and felt overwhelmed by the pressure.

On the day of our shopping trip to IKEA, my mom drove us and insisted that we only buy what was needed and not stop for anything else. Fine by me. I’ve inherited the same genetics as my mom that make us averse to spending time in stores around groups of people when we could be literally anywhere else. I believe our aversion to shopping in person is a nice quirk rather than a seriously annoying inconvenience. We went in and found the dresser immediately thanks to IKEA’s numbering system. The dresser was midnight blue, a synthetic plastic-like material and it came in a giant flat box. We grabbed it and ran to the check out lines. I love how durable it is. It’s never broken to a point where it didn’t function and I did that Pinterest thing where I bought antique looking knobs and replaced the shitty little tabs they had in place before. The sides of it are slightly fraying from the main structure but IKEA furniture is cheap. No one breaks an IKEA purchase, they simply redistribute it to someone else they know or donate it. As my friends and I get older, we wonder out loud to each other if it’s gauche to still be buying new IKEA furniture. I’m usually too tired to argue but my opinion is always No, it’s not. Just look at my midnight blue dresser still kicking around.

The second and most obvious object is a rug I bought at a store down the street from the bra store I go to once a year to pilgrimage for bras. The bra store is filled with women who come into your dressing room with you, stare at your breasts for three seconds and immediately leave to pick up seven options they think will fit. I had just finished one of these hourlong appointments of trying on bras that I knew were already too small for me because the band made it hard to breathe and I regularly like to gain weight. Most are still sitting, unused with tags on in my bra drawer. This isn’t about them. This is about the rug place I went to afterwards. Please keep up. I was feeling depressed and insane for spending as much as I did on bras so I decided to look at rugs as a palate cleanser. Not helpful. I went inside and because it was raining, the store was empty besides me and the owner. We chatted for a bit and I pointed out a couple of smaller rugs that looked good to me. I saw their price tags and felt bad about potentially dropping more money after having just spent all this money on bras I couldn’t wear. The man, tired of my waffling, asked me my budget and if I cared if the rugs were handmade (100 bucks and no). He picked out a beautiful blue rug from Turkey and said it was made by a machine but was under budget ($90) and he’d cut a piece of rug adhesive for me so it wouldn’t slip on my floors. I was enamoured. 

I sometimes think about the less beautiful $400 rug from Turkey that I almost bought. The man was looking out for me. I left the rug store ten times happier than the bra one and put it next to my bed when I got home. I get complimented on the rug a lot. Sometimes I’ll just send someone a picture of my dresser and they’ll say, “Where did you get your rug, it looks great.” And I’ll send them to the rug store and the man who helped me. 

One of my favourite things to joke about with my coworkers is that I love Canadian Tire. Except it’s not even a joke anymore. It’s like a big ass store that has everything you could conceivably need for anything, cheaper and usually better quality than anywhere else. Loving Canadian Tire is a genetic predisposition that I inherited from my dad. There are a few close to where I work so I tend to go there whenever something breaks. For example, at one point I needed to buy glasses and a kettle for our office’s kitchen and went to three other stores before going to Canadian Tire. Each place had ugly, expensive options. Finally, I convinced my boss that I needed to go there and found both glasses and a kettle for less than a third of what the other girls were asking for. Now, I’ve learned my lesson and go to Canadian Tire first, eliminating the need to ever go to another store again. It has plants and ping pong balls. It has mice traps and school supplies. It’s huge but usually very well organized and you can even look up the product you want ahead of time online and it’ll tell you what aisle it’s in, eliminating the need to ask anyone for help when you’re there. I often go on my lunch breaks.

When I was tasked with picking up a lamp for one of our meeting rooms, I figured I would look at options on Canadian Tire’s website. They were all a bit uggo but I found an inoffensive one on sale for $15 brought down from $24. I’m no lamp expert so I don’t know what most lamps cost. I assumed this one was cheaply made and likely junk but I read the reviews and checked it out in person anyway to be doubly sure. It just looked like a basic black lamp with a little hanging pendant ball to turn it on. I bought two and left one at work. 

For a long time, I was using the little bedside table lamp that my roommate had bought and it would never turn on properly. It took me four or five times to get the angle right on the switch for it to turn on. Sometimes, when it was the middle of the night and I couldn’t sleep, I’d try to turn it on so I could read for a bit and get back to bed but I would get so frustrated by it not working that I’d just give up and go back to sleep. I changed the lightbulb but that didn’t seem to do anything so I knew it was the hardware in the lamp itself. Instead of fixing or replacing it, I just went on like this for ages. It never ended. Until I bought myself the $15 lamp. I put it together at work first then brought my own home. The pendant is such a weird but nice touch. It makes turning on a lamp (already a simple task) even easier if that’s possible. The shade is round and black and the base is silver and the wire that connects it to power isn’t garish or too obvious. The shade part of it isn’t completely opaque so it leaves a nice shadow on the walls. I truly love it. I could fix my night table lamp problem with $15 and a bit of assembly. I think about it all the time when I turn it on and off at night. The last time before bed always feels so final.

A very old colleague of mine has been using his instagram as a place to post his art. It was all digital art and he wasn’t selling prints online so I didn’t know how to approach him in a way to ask him if he had anything he was working on that was for sale. It may not be for me. One day, when I was 8 hours ahead of his time zone, he posted about a painting he had worked on and asked to direct message him if we were interested. I sent him a quick “hello, how are you doing,” message and inquired if it was still available. It was the first time he had done this and my schedule was all messed up so I figured I would have missed my opportunity. He got back to me the next day saying that a few other people had expressed interest but I was the first. I was so happy. I e-transferred him some money and we met close to his work for the pick up. I’ve since put it up in my room where I can see it every day and every day it makes me happy.

In a similar vein to this painting, a friend from university who was an excellent painter made me a painting one day when I was at work. I remember this day because I had gotten really drunk the night before, knowing I would have to work retail the next day at 11 a.m. I hauled my whole body out of bed and walked downtown to my job narrowly missing my chance to pick up McDonald’s breakfast on the way. I had a long shift but still made plans to see a movie with my roommates at the theatre near my work afterwards. After the movie, we walked home slowly together and the picture was waiting for me when I got in on my dining room table. I had tears in my eyes when I looked at it. It’s been to every house I’ve lived in since and I love it so much. 

My sister has this frustrating ability to always buy gifts that I continue to use and love years after I’ve been given them. I never expect them to be as great as they turn out when I first receive them. It’s like, oh, this is a nice bag, I could use it as a purse and I’ve worn it daily since. To think of all the places this purse has been with me. How many job interviewers have noticed this bag and admired how stylish and put together I look? It is endless. Every single one of her gifts has turned out this way and I have loved them all more the longer they last me. She’s buying me quality shit. Although I’ve had it repaired a couple of times, I keep repairing it at the lady’s cobbler shop because I just want it to last forever. This purse is probably 8 years old at this point but I refuse to give up on it. It’s black and from Banana Republic.

For months after I returned home from living in another province and breaking up with my first boyfriend, I experienced near constant sadness. I didn’t know when the next time I would laugh or smile at my friends would be. I found it hard to trust people I had known for years. It was the type of sadness reserved for your first heartbreak, the one that no one ever prepares you for or can talk you down from. I was unable to understand this new level of pain and this only served to further my suffering. I couldn’t even describe it to my friends properly. With more distance between myself now and this heavy-hearted person, I realize that it’s likely that most people have experienced this pain and I was just very self-absorbed. 

I stopped eating three meals a day because I started tasting food and drinks as if I was constantly sick, which I was. Everything was too bitter or sour or bland. I slept for hours but never felt rested. I developed a very unhealthy smoking habit that I unsuccessfully tried to hide from my parents. And I bought what I now lovingly refer to as my depression sweater. I remember getting it one day from the Bay when I was looking for a gift for my dad’s birthday. At the time it looked like something I could wear to work if I dressed it up. This was wrong as it was and still is several sizes too large for me and appears to be a very basic, striped, long-sleeved shirt. It’s both thick and thin enough to wear as a jacket or a cover-up. It’s so nondescript and unremarkable that when wearing it, I felt like I could blend into the walls. For some time, I wore it every time I left the house to do something social. Going out with friends felt like the ultimate errand at the time because I never wanted to speak to anyone. Wearing the sweater felt like the most effort I was willing to put into my outfit for the night. I could throw on tight jeans underneath and look presentable enough to be let into most bars. The depression sweater also served to hide the rapid weight loss I suffered by replacing eating regularly with smoking for breakfast and lunch then eating a big dinner with my parents to hide the fact that my diet was 75% cigarettes. You only noticed how thin I was by hugging me or by the sallowness in my face.

My lovely friends didn’t rush me out of my sad moods but encouraged me to come out despite my new antisocial behaviour. I agreed to play along and show up, but didn’t engage the entire time we spent at the bar. Later when I asked what had tipped them off to my depression, one of my friends responded that I would be out with everyone, but always offered to watch our coats or get more drinks when they would go off to dance. I participated way less in conversations. “And your sweater,” she said. 

“What sweater?”

“The striped one. You wore it every time we went out. And it looked bad.”  

Now, I barely wear my depression sweater outside. I’ve realized that it’s unflattering and creates a box where my torso should be. On cold nights, I’ll put it on and feel comforted by it. Somewhere along our journey, I’ve dropped a bit of something bright green on it that won’t come out and I can’t place what it is. I notice this stain on the left wrist more than anything else about it. It lives in my closet like an old band t-shirt, one I’m too nostalgic or stubborn to throw out. I know that at one point, it will no longer serve me but I can’t imagine getting rid of it, even then. The memories associated with the depression sweater weigh me down. It looks as though it’s lived many lives over. If it could make a sound, it would only whisper that it was tired and sigh.

Not unlike my depression sweater is my black Aritzia dress. I bought it on a whim years ago and can’t even remember if I tried it on before taking it to the checkout. During the summer of my unemployment, I wore it basically every day because I couldn’t be bothered to find something new to wear. It was exactly what I was looking for, a hands-off approach to dressing. I was hot, so I needed to wear a short dress. I was sweaty so it had to be black and not show off my sweat stains. If it were dirty, you could barely tell. It doesn’t even smell. Something about wearing it makes me feel so comforted and beautiful. It drapes over my body like a giant parachute. It hides my shape. It has a beautiful embroidered bit on the chest. It’s like a caftan without arms. 

The cost per wear for it is probably in the cents now because of how often I’ve donned it but it was around $80. It is as reliable as my depression sweater without the sad memories. 

It is my sincere hope that appreciating these material things will make me want less in life. If I’m constantly reminded of the joy they bring me, it will lead to a life of fulfillment and satisfaction without having to look for it elsewhere.