I know that this may sound completely strange. There are a lot of people out there who have predicted the Fall of Man and the End of Days and so on and so on. They all have this huge “2012 Apocalypse” mentality. I know that we have nuclear bombs and so many of them that the entire planet can be destroyed. I know we have tobacco companies that produce products that cause cancer at an alarming rate. I know we have viruses and bacteria that haven’t even been discovered as yet and that we are all totally screwed once those things have their slimy ways with us. But what I think is the true Fall of Man is the Sectional Sofa. And by that I mean a sectional sofa that has not one, not two, but THREE RECLINING SECTIONS that make our relaxation so profound that the entire world can just drift past and we don’t even notice.
This is not something that I have always known. Let’s face it, the sectional sofa has not existed all that long in our world. I remember the one my mom’s cousin had way back in the ’70’s. For those of you who were born after 1987, I assure you that when I say “way back in the ’70’s” what I mean is the 1970’s, not the 1870’s. I may have just had yet another birthday but I am NOT THAT OLD…..yet. Anyway, my mom’s cousin’s sofa was a sectional. It was hard. They called it “firm”, which was their Harlequin Romance Novel way of saying it was “HARD AS A GODDAM ROCK”. Whenever we would go over there if the kids were allowed to watch TV at all we had to sit on this bloody sectional that may as well have been a fallen tree. Once I sat on the floor (because it was SOFTER) and was reprimanded by my uncle who was one of those “Order vs. Chaos” freaks. So back up on the sectional sofa I went because “There is plenty of room there for everyone to sit so there is no need to sit on my floor and possibly harm my new shag rug.” A SHAG RUG. Don’t even get me started! What the hell did he think I was going to do? Pee myself? Would that have honestly been better on the sofa than the rug? Seriously!
Over time sectional sofas have morphed into a completely different sort of thing. A friend of mine back in the ’90’s had one that had a Navaho design on it (which, at the time, I thought was pretty cool and now, when I look at that design, it has become so over done that it just looks tired and pathetic). I remember the first time I sat in this sofa. I almost sank to the floor! There was no support in it of which to speak. When I leaned back it felt like that back padding was going to swallow me whole. I felt suffocated and totally panicked. Back to the floor I went! And my friend said, “Why sit on the floor when there is a perfectly good sectional to relax in?” and that is when I had a complete flashback to my uncle reprimanding me in the ’70’s. I very politely said that I have a body part that is very looooong….that being my BACK…..and that it needed better lumbar support.
By this time along the trail of the exploration of sectional sofas I was beginning to think that they just do not make them with any sort of intelligence when it comes to quality and design. I had even experienced one, when staying at another cousin’s home for a weekend, that folded out into a bed. I did not know that sectionals could do that. It was made in some other country, so perhaps it was not something anyone could ever find in Canada at the time….other than in my rather trendy cousin’s home. Sleeping on that thing was kind of like sleeping on a futon. That is to say that it was a rather soft ROCK. My body ached all the next day. But hey, it was free lodging for the weekend and beggars can’t be choosers.
Now flash forward to just after my late wife died. At that time, in our living room there was no sofa. We could never agree on what we would want for a sofa. She had a hid-a-bed sofa that we put in the family room downstairs because it was so big that it would take up way too much room in the living room. So we looked around at numerous places, but could not find a single sofa that both of us found to be comfortable. This may have had to do with the fact that I am 6’3″ and she was 5’6″. This was never a problem for us in other regards. I would reach the stuff on the top shelves. She would pick stuff up off the floor. It all worked well. And, let’s face it, when you are in a horizontal position height is never really an issue. But there we were unable to find a single sofa, sectional or otherwise, that would work for both of us. So instead we had a number of occasional chairs around the living room. Most of them were horribly uncomfortable for me to sit on for the duration of a one hour episode of anything, so I would frequently get up and change chairs.
After she died, I went through a period where I had to claim my home as my own. I considered bringing the sofa up from downstairs, and actually did so to have a spare bed in the spare bedroom, but could not bring myself to have it as the main sofa in the living room because I could not stand sitting on it for more than a half hour or so. I know what you are thinking! “This guy is beginning to sound like the princess and the pea!” I assure you that I don’t have such demanding expectations. I just want to feel comfortable in whatever I will be sitting in for any length of time because of several back injuries I have sustained over the years. Rod is amazed when I go off on a tangent about this injury or that injury that I have had over the course of now 55 years. He can hardly believe that I am still walking! But there is something about my personality that just won’t let me stop. I am like the Energizer Bunny! {something he thoroughly appreciates about me in other regards} Or perhaps like a damage proof wrist watch that can take a kicking and keep on ticking! So I eventually sold the sofa from the spare room because I did not need more than one sofa. My friend, Tamara, helped me find the one for my living room. And it was a SECTIONAL! Leather. THREE RECLINERS. LUMBAR SUPPORT! A console that opens up where you can store your remotes. TWO CUP HOLDERS. It is not one of those electric recliners. I didn’t want the electricity under my butt or behind my back. First off that would limit where in the room the sectional could be placed and secondly I don’t like most electrical things anyway because I am very sensitive to EMF’s. So it was completely old school mechanical. And it was extremely comfortable.
And THAT is what will be the fall of mankind. When a person finds that there is a place to sit and recline and relax and watch TV or listen to music, one can simply spend the rest of one’s life there. THE REST OF ONE’S LIFE, I tell ya!!!
Within a month I was no longer doing my workouts. I was “relaxing”. Within two months there came to be a time or two where I would no longer go to bed. Why would I when I could just cover up with a blanket and drift off right here on my SECTIONAL SOFA?? Then I became a bit of a TV addict. After all, one cannot spend ALL of one’s time listening to music and reading. And then I realized that my TV could accommodate Netflix. And then I was totally screwed because I could very easily have 4-5 hours slip by and I would not even notice. Penn, my dog helped me out here and there. After all, dogs do occasionally need to be let outside to do their business. And they do also need to be let back inside, especially in -25 degree weather or colder. I began to just not waste my time sitting back down. I would watch her from the back door and let her back in before I sat back down because it is so difficult to get back up once I relaxed.
But it did occur to me that I may not be the only person in the world with such 1st world issues! Perhaps all this luxury of the sectional sofa was making me more complacent. Perhaps it was making me more malleable to the concepts put forth by the media that I am now addicted to watching. Perhaps it was making me less physically active and therefore harming my well-being. Could I have become that which I once scorned? Could I possibly have become a (God FORBID) “couch potato”? OMG!
So I decided to start my workouts once again. I did this dance workout that was helping a lot with the excess weight around the middle. I lasted all of 1 1/2 songs where I used to do the entire CD. It was a start. And I started planking again. I could hold a plank pose for all of 24 seconds where I used to be able to do at least 3 1/2 minutes and often more depending upon that particular pose. I felt like it was going to be a great but long journey back into fitness for myself. But I am also worth it. And after my workouts I would sit, sip coffee, and watch an episode of whatever while I relaxed in my sectional sofa.
In life it is really about the moderation of EVERYTHING. There are enough extremists out there to blow up the planet. I don’t have to be one of them. I will eat what I want without a diet being forced, brow beaten, or suggested to me. I will work out in whatever way I choose and as often as I decide is good for me. I will relax in whatever way I like. And I won’t have to feel compelled to make anyone else do anything that I choose to do for myself just because I think it is something that will help them feel good or because I am off on an extreme tangent about how much better the entire world will be if everyone does it my way. I hate dogma, as I have mentioned in other blog entries, and so I will not be inflicting it on anyone.
As I utilize moderation in my life I also have found that there are some areas that I did not expect to be simplified that actually are being simplified. For example. BLING. I no longer feel any need or desire to purchase the next beautiful men’s ring that I see. I have given away many of my blingy things (even though one would never know it from looking through my jewelry box) and no longer feel a need to replace what has gone out. I like that. I feel like I am connecting more to the world around me instead of replacing loneliness with “stuff”. When people offer to give things to me I now am able to say “No, thank you” and not feel guilty about it. If I really want something I get it. I don’t have to be the storehouse for things I don’t want and don’t need. This is freedom and as I do this I can’t help but feel that, just by setting a personal example, I may be rippling this “Simplicity Code” to the rest of the world without having to say a word about it. So in limiting my time spent on my sectional sofa, I just might be saving the entire world! You’re welcome!
*Note: Said sectional sofa has since been replaced with a sofa and loveseat…but only because the sectional would not fit into our new living room.
*Also: I am aware of the irony of the fact that I mentioned that I don’t have to say a word about it, yet I just wrote an entire blog about it. I am duplicitous in that regard.
*As well: I would definitely NOT recommend a sectional sofa for any family. I did find that it was, even without being electric, limiting in terms of what one could do with it in a room. It is much better to keep one’s room arrangements open to possibilities.
*And finally: This is not to say that I have any disdain for those who do choose to have a sectional sofa in their room. To each their own. Another Shamanic teaching. You are welcome!