So I’m looking into getting back into a relationship that I have tried before, one that has not proven successful in the past. It’s a relationship of convenience, one that satisfies an immediate need, but in the long run I have found that it leaves me frustrated and hurting.
Yes, I’m considering buying a Futon.
I have had a metal futon frame sitting in my back yard since I moved to my apartment 2 1/2 years ago. It cries out for a mattress to sit upon it, but I have resisted as I’ve been using the second bedroom in my house as a massage room since I moved in. I’m about to make the big girl move of getting massage space outside my house, giving me the possibility of a guest room/yoga room/arts and crafts room/meditation space for the first time since I’ve lived here in Tucson. An actual guest room! Where people can sleep and I don’t feel the need to donate my bed to the cause and couch it while I have company in town!
Big news in my world.
But the futon. The Futon. It looks so convenient, all “Look at me, I can be a couch AND a bed. I can take up only a little space when you don’t need me and easily pull out into a bed when you do…” Siren song.
It could also say, “Look at me, I weigh a million pounds and can’t be lifted by less than three people because of the mattress (oh, the mattress! invented by Satan’s minions!) and will have you cursing like a sailor every time you try to switch me from day to night as well as every time you bang your shin against my hard sharp corners when you take the laundry out! Plus that aforementioned mattress? About as comfy as sleeping on a park bench, but without that fresh outdoors feeling.”
Why am I even considering this move? Haven’t I learned from the past? What is it about them that keeps pulling me back in?
I know the answer – it’s about the flexibility. With a futon I don’t have to designate the use of an entire extra room to the sole function of having a bed in it. Essentially we’re talking about a fear of commitment, something that I have been accused (probably correctly so) of having many times in the past.
But I know that the reality of having that freedom, that flexibility, comes at its own price. Basically it’s like having one of those tricky Friends With Benefits relationships. Eventually the emotions come in – you want someone to spend quality time with, someone to kiss and tell the story of your day to, someone to go grocery shopping with, and yes, someone to help you move the f-ing futon.
I can see that what I’m looking at here is a decision, that while it feels as though I’ve already made it, beckons with the possibility of another choice, perhaps one in which I buckle down and commit to just having a damn bed in the guest room already. Perhaps there are solutions I haven’t looked at yet. Much like the relationship choices, or the food choices, or the workout choices, while the familiar path may seem to be the right one because it’s a known quantity, it also comes with the same results. And we all know that making the same choices but expecting different results is one of the definitions of insanity. So fie on you, futon. You won’t get me again.
p.s. Don’t even get me started on air mattresses.
Namaste
