Couch-Deep Roots

Rich people always seem to think the best kind of couches are the leather ones with those knobby tufts, or the ones with electric recliners in every seat and cupholders and cell phone chargers in between; the ones with the contoured seats that make you feel like you’re getting ready to launch into space or something.

But they’re wrong.

I can tell you right now, the best kind of couch is one with a deep seat and two long cushions, none of that three cushion business. Two long cushions, at least 80 inches total, and a high back. Nothing ruins a couch like a low back, or you know those back cushions that stay attached? Those are the worst. You’ll never find a harder couch to put a fitted sheet on. And believe me, I know a thing or two about putting a fitted sheet on a couch.

Most people who meet me might describe me as a nomad and I guess I can live with that term if I have to, but it’s always made it sound more like this is a choice when… I’m not really sure it is. Sure, I choose where I go next, I choose to up and move when things get rough, but… doesn’t everybody?

Maybe not. Maybe this life is not as typical as I feel like it is. Maybe it’s not normal to have to list twelve different addresses in the last seven years when you’re filling out paperwork for a background check, and those didn’t include the basement or the farm or the single month stays. Maybe it’s not normal to have a place you lived at for two months as the address on your driver’s license. Maybe it’s not normal to you, but it’s normal to me.

At least… I thought it was. I thought I had gotten used to this. I thought I understood what it was to constantly be surrounded by change; to constantly be on the lookout for cheaper rent, for distant relations with spare rooms, for friends with 80 inch, two-cushion, deep-seat couches. I thought… I thought this was freedom.

I have nothing to tie me down. I work the jobs that get me through; the jobs that teach you good and well what type of person you want to be, and it’s whatever those customers are not. I’ve got a car with about 75k miles more on it than normal and a tow hitch I installed myself. I never grow roots deeper than friends with couches. I move enough that I don’t even have to ask for boxes anymore; everything I own is in plastic bins.

Now let me tell you something about plastic bins. Everybody seems to think those big, heavy-duty ones are the way to go, but I’m here to say that if all you are getting are the big, heavy-duty ones, you’re going to hit a lot more trouble when you have to TETRIS those things into the back of your car and the smallest U-HAUL trailer available. Besides, you don’t want a giant bin of books to lug around; do you know how heavy books are? They’re right about the heavy duty, though. Don’t skimp out on your plastic or it’ll skimp out on you.

Yeah.

Yeah, that’s what I always say.

Not to anybody in particular, mostly just to myself. It’s the type of thing I would say in a podcast if I ever did one of those. I’ve thought about it, definitely, and I’ve even had friends tell me we should start one together, but… well, the thing about couch-deep roots is that they hardly ever last long enough for a podcast.

That’s another thing about couches. Everybody has one. Everybody needs someplace to sit; everybody has a couch. And when the couch breaks or wears out, you get a new one. You take off the legs to get it through the door and, even though it’s probably a bit uncomfortable and it takes a bit of doing, you get it out eventually and a new one goes in.

And the old one is taken to the curb.

Not in a resentful sort of way, necessarily; not with malice. Most people will flop down one final time, pat the couch on the back, thank it for its work, and then go back in to enjoy the new one. Every once in a while, they’ll think of the old couch and how it had that one spring sticking out that would catch your pants if you shifted the middle cushion just wrong, or the three missing tufted buttons, or the busted arm that sort of hung off a bit wonky. But once it’s gone, it’s gone. Who knows where it went after it disappeared from the curb? We think about it sometimes, but it’s not like anybody is going out of their way to track it down, even if they see its posts on Facebook and have its phone number.

Well, that’s couch-deep roots for you.

It’s alright though, everybody loves a new couch, and once you show up somewhere else, it’s like you were never on the curb to begin with.

And it repeats.

And I thought that was freedom… but the longer it goes, the more I catch myself wondering… if I’ve only trapped myself in some cyclical sequence. Because no matter where I go; no matter who I meet or how easy it is to get the fitted sheet to fit the couch, I end my days restless and wanting. I tell myself I want to travel; I want to leave again; I want to disappear. But is that the whole truth? Is there more to this wanting? Maybe what I want is something more than couch-deep roots. Maybe if I just stayed in one place for a while… learned last names, met a neighbor, chose a dentist… maybe then, I wouldn’t want to leave.

Maybe loneliness sometimes wears a mask that looks like freedom.

But maybe someday, I’ll be the one with the couch. 80 inches at least, no more than two cushions, deep seat, of course. Maybe then, the loneliness will subside; maybe then the restlessness will ease. Maybe then I’ll wake up one day on an actual bed with a fitted sheet and maybe then I will earnestly say…

I’m free.