different for me. Was it sexist? Did I secretly wish Ian had brought a house to the table?
No. I wished Ian had brought
nothing
to the table, including the table.
I loved Ian. I just didn’t love his things.
Now, before you deem me a snob, I would like to explain that I did live with Ian in his very small Lower East Side apartment for a few months while we were dating.
I’d been working in New York and living in a furnished apartment, but my lease was up, and my job was ending, and it seemed encouraging and astounding that my bad-boy boyfriend wanted me to stay and live with him. So I decided to ignore his scary bathroom and tiny bedroom and complete lack of closet space. We could do this. We were in love.
Ian built shelves above the bed for my shoes. He cooked me delicious meals in the hallway he called a kitchen. We went to the farmers’ market together every Sunday. We were the New York couple I always wanted to be. And at night as his radiator rattled and clanged, I would lie in his arms and look up at my shoes and think/sing:
We gotta get out of this place
.
According to Wikipedia, “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” by the Animals was immensely popular among United States armed forces during the Vietnam War. I’m not likening my situation on the Lower East Side to Vietnam, but I will say the lack of an exit strategy was starting to worry me.
The final straw was the NYU students. Ian’s lease was almost up, and the apartment was being shown, and while I was home making the bed by standing on top of it (which is how you had to do it, since it took up half of the room), two young Asian students came in, took a quick look around, and announced, “This isn’t big enough for two people.” They were eighteen-year-old girls. And not to stereotype, but Asian girls are by and large not large people.
I decided—much as I had about the backpacking I was willing to do early in our relationship because I was so excited Ian wanted to travel with me—that I was too old for this crap.
I had tried. I had showered in a shower that seemed impervious to cleaning products. Its best bet was that it might end up in the public garden next door with the other discarded bathroom fixtures that were trying to pass as art. We had to get out of that place.
And we did. We rented a West Village apartment together for a year, and then Ian proposed, and now he was leaving everything behind (well, he was leaving New York behind—the rest he had apparently brought with him) to join me in Los Angeles, because I had a career and house there.
And that house was perfect as is! That’s what I was thinking as I took the large metal elevator to my potential storage unit. That house was once featured in
InStyle Home
, and, aside from some slight restaging—apparently I needed aqua ceramic vases, an orange cashmere blanket, and a breakfast tray with books on it—it was clearly considered a lovely space by people who specialized in lovely spaces, so why mess with it?
Because I was now married. That’s why.
That’s what I kept coming back to.
Ian wasn’t just visiting. He wasn’t a booty call (anymore). He was my husband, and I needed to make room for him, emotionally and physically.
So I put some of my things in storage, including my beloved art deco bedroom and vanity set with Bakelite handles that I had bought when my first marriage was ending. I remember my soon-to-be-ex-husband saying “You don’t have room for that furniture,” while I was thinking
I will when you leave
. Now that art deco declaration of independence was leaning against a wall in unit R3176, along with my grandmother’s bentwood rocking chair and a bunch of expensive throw pillows.
I had no idea I had so many throw pillows. Why doesn’t Suze Orman warn people about those? They cost a small fortune, they have to be literally thrown aside so you can enjoy the furniture they adorn, and eventually they adorn your storage unit.
As I was about to lock the unit
No. I wished Ian had brought
nothing
to the table, including the table.
I loved Ian. I just didn’t love his things.
Now, before you deem me a snob, I would like to explain that I did live with Ian in his very small Lower East Side apartment for a few months while we were dating.
I’d been working in New York and living in a furnished apartment, but my lease was up, and my job was ending, and it seemed encouraging and astounding that my bad-boy boyfriend wanted me to stay and live with him. So I decided to ignore his scary bathroom and tiny bedroom and complete lack of closet space. We could do this. We were in love.
Ian built shelves above the bed for my shoes. He cooked me delicious meals in the hallway he called a kitchen. We went to the farmers’ market together every Sunday. We were the New York couple I always wanted to be. And at night as his radiator rattled and clanged, I would lie in his arms and look up at my shoes and think/sing:
We gotta get out of this place
.
According to Wikipedia, “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” by the Animals was immensely popular among United States armed forces during the Vietnam War. I’m not likening my situation on the Lower East Side to Vietnam, but I will say the lack of an exit strategy was starting to worry me.
The final straw was the NYU students. Ian’s lease was almost up, and the apartment was being shown, and while I was home making the bed by standing on top of it (which is how you had to do it, since it took up half of the room), two young Asian students came in, took a quick look around, and announced, “This isn’t big enough for two people.” They were eighteen-year-old girls. And not to stereotype, but Asian girls are by and large not large people.
I decided—much as I had about the backpacking I was willing to do early in our relationship because I was so excited Ian wanted to travel with me—that I was too old for this crap.
I had tried. I had showered in a shower that seemed impervious to cleaning products. Its best bet was that it might end up in the public garden next door with the other discarded bathroom fixtures that were trying to pass as art. We had to get out of that place.
And we did. We rented a West Village apartment together for a year, and then Ian proposed, and now he was leaving everything behind (well, he was leaving New York behind—the rest he had apparently brought with him) to join me in Los Angeles, because I had a career and house there.
And that house was perfect as is! That’s what I was thinking as I took the large metal elevator to my potential storage unit. That house was once featured in
InStyle Home
, and, aside from some slight restaging—apparently I needed aqua ceramic vases, an orange cashmere blanket, and a breakfast tray with books on it—it was clearly considered a lovely space by people who specialized in lovely spaces, so why mess with it?
Because I was now married. That’s why.
That’s what I kept coming back to.
Ian wasn’t just visiting. He wasn’t a booty call (anymore). He was my husband, and I needed to make room for him, emotionally and physically.
So I put some of my things in storage, including my beloved art deco bedroom and vanity set with Bakelite handles that I had bought when my first marriage was ending. I remember my soon-to-be-ex-husband saying “You don’t have room for that furniture,” while I was thinking
I will when you leave
. Now that art deco declaration of independence was leaning against a wall in unit R3176, along with my grandmother’s bentwood rocking chair and a bunch of expensive throw pillows.
I had no idea I had so many throw pillows. Why doesn’t Suze Orman warn people about those? They cost a small fortune, they have to be literally thrown aside so you can enjoy the furniture they adorn, and eventually they adorn your storage unit.
As I was about to lock the unit
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