Chairs

Chairs.

 

As many of you know I have been preparing for the big move to our new home.  Cleaning, packing and purging have become buzz words around my house.  The excitement is raising as we take possession in just over two weeks and I cannot wait.  The new home is ever so pretty with shining wood floors and a backyard that is both private and extensive.  So we have decided the new house deserves a new kitchen / dining table set.  Something that is in better condition than our ratty old bar height table.  I’ve been looking online and locally and not much has peaked my interest. 

 

I’ve been re-watching Friends and by re-watching I mean total binge watching.  (I know this seems like a total ‘SQUIRREL’ moment but I promise it is all related) Monica has a wonderful kitchen set.  Four chairs, none of which match but they are conversational, funky and so trendy.  Even now twenty years after the show is done the set still intrigues me.  So I’m watching and I think to myself “That would be beautiful in our new home.”  Then I start to imagine it further, I start to sweat.  I find it difficult to breathe.   My brain wants the orderly, the balanced.  Four chairs that are all different is, to my mind, as hard to accept as fingernails on chalkboards. 

 

The mismatched chairs would be stunning in the home, but they wouldn’t do for me.   Some people are mismatched chair types of people and others need to have a matching set.  I kept thinking that I had to be the type of person who could live with an eclectic set of furniture.  In my mind, creative fun enterprising people have mismatched sets of furniture.  Rigid strict boring people have matching sets.  I tried to force a fit but even the thought of un-matching furniture set my teeth on edge. 

 

I am creative and I think I am fun, but I still need balance.  I can’t handle it when things on shelves are asymmetrical, as my family well knows.  Often they will rearrange things just to see how long it takes me to ‘fix’ the problem.  

 

So I don’t think it’s a black and white matter of mismatched chair people being the creative artists types and matching being the stuffed shirts.  I think being in a well-organized space can induce creativity as much as the funky disorder others love.  We all function within our spaces the best we can.  Embrace your inner organizer, if that’s what you need and let your freak flag fly if that’s what you need.  Whatever is necessary for you to find that spark within you – take it.  Fly with it.  Accept what you need as normal. 

 

It doesn’t matter if you are a matching chair person or a mismatched set.  What matters is that what you have makes you happy and lets you be you.