My living room has a new rug. Finally. And it’s that finally that carries a message for all of us.
Let me explain.
Twenty-four-plus years ago we had the good fortune to find a small house for sale in a coastal town at a price we could afford. We lived 100 miles away, looking at beach houses as potential retirement homes - with plenty of lead time to prepare for the eventual move - and weekend retreats in the meantime.
I had a decent job which, along with our cheap rent, made the scheme possible.
We bought the house as-is, with the idea that we could come out on weekends and fix it up to be the retirement home we always wanted. We had so many plans!
There were some floor and window coverings in the house, none of them particularly to our taste, but serviceable. We declared them acceptable as “temporary” and focused on other things, like paint and minor repairs - and a new roof.
Then, as so often happens, everything changed. I wasn’t making a serious effort to find a new job, but I kept my eyes open; and I was offered a wonderful new job at the beach. The one I just retired from after 23 years.
That temporary rug has (until just a few days ago) been in the living room ever since. It got older, more worn, stained, and generally disgusting. But it also got covered in furniture, and we did our best to ignore how terrible it had become. The cost of changing that “temporary” carpet had become so high we couldn’t bring ourselves to tackle it.
It became, in the words of Jimmy Buffett, A Permanent Reminder of a Temporary Feeling. Buffett’s lyrics perfectly capture the essence of allowing a temporary decision to become permanent; the expediency that allows a temporary fix to calcify into a permanent, though perhaps not pleasant, situation.
Finally this week we found a rug we liked at the local Habitat for Humanity Restore. Actually, we found two matching rugs in different sizes which would cover the room. The price - in dollars and cents - was right and we decided it was time.
Getting the old rug out and the new one in took a lot of work. We had to move furniture, sure, but more difficult was dealing with the bookcases. You cannot move a full bookcase, I don’t care who you are, and you certainly can’t move it if you’re a couple senior citizens who haven’t been working out. So we spent hours putting books in boxes and bags, culling a few shelves in the process. For the record, there were seven tall bookcases, all of them packed full. The five shopping bags of books that are set out to go away? Didn’t seem to even make a dent.
The old rug ended up in several pieces to make it easier to remove and roll up, and the foam padding underneath got stuffed into trash bags. For two days the living room was like a giant sliding puzzle as we slid chairs and bookcases around to get to the floor. At least I got the chance to clean behind every piece of furniture in the room, and in the hard-to-reach corners.
We are a little the worse for the wear (Steve hurt his back and is having to take it easy for a few days), but this morning the local garbage company hauled away the pieces of rug and bags of padding that I had dragged to the curb, and we can gaze lovingly at our new rugs.
Until they get covered up with more furniture and bookcases.
This is just a long-winded way of telling you not to accept a temporary situation that doesn’t make you happy. You’re free to make your own rules, and to arrange your life in a way that works for you.
I think this is the message at the heart of everything I write here. You have the right to be happy, to have a life you love, and to honor and nurture your creativity.
Don’t let a temporary feeling lead you to a permanent reminder that you settled for less than you deserve.