This morning my husband and I read over and signed paperwork on our dining room table. The table is typically used to collect the junk piles that collect in our home. It’s the first place I store the mail after I open it and the first place I put down heavy cardboard boxes delivered by UPS or FedEx.
Before we head to the beach I line four or five empty beer boxes on that table and fill them the same way most people would fill suitcases. I place wall hangings and other beach trinkets in one and clothes, sheets and towels in the others. When we’re ready to go we slide those boxes along the top of the table and load them one by one into our car until that table once again stands empty.
On an every day basis I don’t think much about that table. Why would I? But today, as I sat beside my husband, and read over paperwork, and signed my name, I took a moment to reflect on it.
My husband and I have celebrated intimate dinners at that old, wooden table and larger holiday dinners with the rest of the family. We’ve also signed the papers to finance and refinance multiple mortgages there. I tried to teach myself to draw on that table. I took notes for the PMP exam there and used it from time to time as the place to write in my journal.
In fact, in some strange way, although that table sits alone in my dining room, it may very well be one of the most used pieces of furniture I own.
For years I’ve considered replacing it. It was a hand-me-down from my in-laws and truth be told I don’t actually fit very comfortably there. My long legs tend to bump into the wooden underside and the chairs have very little padding.
I’ve shopped online for dining room tables and found a couple that might be a better fit both for comfort and for my home, but so far I’ve yet to buy a new one. I don’t typically think of myself as one who gets attached to inanimate objects, but believe it or not I think I might just be attached to that table. I’m not attached to the wood and fabric that makes up it’s constructs, but rather to the memories of the time I’ve spent in and around it.
What paperwork did you sign?!
It,s definitely the memories. I do all my budgeting at my table, it is a large wooden table with a drawer in it and I keep my, budget book my pens and my current receipts there.
I also look proudly around the faces at my table when we get together for a family meal, and think maybe I did make a success of something.
We're going through the same search. The dining room set is from Hubby's parents' house (they had bought a LOVELY French country set) and now that his mom's been gone over two years, he is ready to relinquish it. My attachment was to our kitchen table, which had been my parents'. Sentimental reasons? Yes. Practical reasons? Heck yeah – it had a drop-leaf that folded into the table.
Good luck on letting go… and finding a replacement that works for you. You'll always have the memories.