Picking a place to live in was easy enough for me this year, as I was homeless and anything was better than having to mooch off other people's generosity. While my current apartment is not somewhere I could bear to live for very long - mostly because of the poor maintenance state and hearing everything of the upstairs neighbours - the times when it's quiet in the building and I'm sitting back for a moment I can appreciate living here as I entertain the thought that it would be a nice place to live for a long time if it wasn't for the noise. In the end it's just a shell, however, and changing shells isn't so hard.
Furniture is much harder and in many reflects one's current state in life. Each room makes clear a lot about what one's focus is in life and what's still lacking. After finally furnishing my apartment which took a mere eight or so months of agonizing over many details and saving up the money to afford it all, I think that a clear image has formed of where I'm at in life.
Starting with the most well-furnished room where clearly a lot is happening: clearly the office. With multiple desks, a great chair, lots of storage space and more electronics equipment than you could shake a stick at (and with more coming), it's clear that I practically live there. My life is work, essentially.
Moving on to the living room: mostly memories of what it used to be like to live in a proper home and flashbacks to good things from my youth. I fondly remember the solid wooden table and chairs we had so I had to get something similar, even if I'm unlikely to really use the table. Similarly with the couch, coffee table, comfy carpet on the floor and bookshelves. It's clear that it's a room nobody lives in. There are things in the bookshelves, but it's more of a storage room than a living one. Maybe some day it will be used.
The kitchen is just functional. Not too expensive and relatively spartan. No fancy decorations or such. It's just there to enable food storage and preparation.
Hallways are to walk through. Something to put one's jacket up on is nice, though.
Also quite telling is the bedroom. Maybe more so than the office, as there's the choice between picking a bed large enough for a single or for two people. In the end I did go with the latter choice, even though I have expectations that I'll ever share my life with another person. Having more space is nice. Seeing the empty pillow and unused table next to the other side of the bed is lonely, though. Maybe it was the wrong choice in that regard. Further the bedroom tries to go for a peaceful feeling, as I tried to establish something of that calm oasis feeling. Not that I can sleep without earplugs in, though.
So my purchasing spree which has enabled me to finally furnish my place has also given me a few uncomfortable insights in my current life and has made me think about my future. It's apparently a rather empty life, of large, empty tables. Of going to sleep and waking up in a bed that's always half-empty. Of not living in the living room, but spending almost every waking moment in the office.
It's lonely in a way. Just sleeping, eating, working, sleeping, eating, working... day in day out. Whether it's because I simply have no time for anything else right now or that I have already lost the possibility of ever changing my life in any meaningful way. Maybe it is better like this, though. The past decade I seem to already have lost pretty much everything that would enable me to trust people enough to consider friendship, let alone enter into a relationship. I would completely get rid of emotions if it were possible. Computers and technology are the safe heaven I have. Everything else is just blackness and pain. Happiness and joy are either cruel lies or merely reserved for normal people.
If you need me, I'll be over here in the office, working on something, while only dust settles on the unused furniture in the living room.
Maya
No comments:
Post a Comment