One Nightstand

I began house-shopping about a month ago and last week, I sent my realtor a request to see three properties: a two-bedroom condo, a three-bedroom townhouse, and a four-bedroom single family home. It wasn’t until after viewing them that I realized how ridiculous that was – those properties completely run the gamut.

So exactly what kind of home am I looking for? I guess the answer depends on what kind of life I want to have – or rather, what kind of life I assume I'll have. Stripping this conundrum to its core, we find the obvious source of the vexation: Do I think I’m going to be single for a while to come or not?

This takes me back to a time before I'd gotten married. I wasn't just single, I was very single. And I’d just moved into my second home. 

I’d been obsessed with finding a utopic little domicile and my search was successful. It was my “grown-up” home with marble floors, granite countertops and a pool in the backyard (admittedly, this was during a somewhat materialistic phase of my life which preceded the current I-could-live-in-a-hut-on-a-beach-as-long-as-I’m-with-someone-I-love phase, but regardless…); this was a place where I could see myself living for the next 10-20 years. 

I’d furnished it over the course of several months, meticulously wading through the wares of antique markets and import stores. I’d almost completed the chore when I was very suddenly slapped in the face with a nauseating revelation. I sat down that night and wrote about it. 

Given my recent re-introduction to singlehood, it has - again - become relevant. I therefore thought I’d share:

One Nightstand

Every night I am reminded -- as I lie between thousand thread count sheets, under the silk duvet I bought in China, draped over my king-sized mahogany platform bed that was decidedly the best purchase in the wake of my recent move.

Every night I am reminded -- as I turn off the TV and lay the remote on this wobbly little wicker stand that I’m using as my bedside table. In just under 15 square inches of space, there are already two other remotes there, a pair of glasses, an alarm clock, two candles, a phone, and a lamp.

It looks absurd.

The tiny table rocks unsteadily as I reach to turn off the lamp. My glasses fall through the wicker slats and onto the floor. The phone will be the next casualty. It’s been slowly edging off the back of the table for days.

Everything in my bedroom is perfect. Why is this pathetic little table still here? It’s inadequate and out of place in my perfect bedroom, in my perfect house. It needs to be replaced with something beautiful and functional -- something sturdy, with a big drawer, in a deep mahogany that perfectly complements my perfect bed. Since moving to this new home, I’ve made all of the big purchases. This is my one remaining buy and the need is obvious.

But it has morphed into an early midlife crisis.

Somehow furniture shopping has become an ominous exploration of my life’s failures and my future’s uncertainty. All of this following the question posed by the salesman at my favorite Indonesian import store on the day I'd set out to buy the nightstand:

“Do you want one bedside table or two?”

He would never know the impact of the blow he just landed.

It was such an obvious question. But there I stood, silent. Until that moment, I had never thought about it. Clearly one table is all I need -- and one was all I'd intended to buy. It is just me sleeping in that bed, after all.

But will it always be just me, alone, in that bed? Probably not. I mean, I hope not. So should I buy two?

The thing is, bedside tables aren't exactly cheap, so why buy two if I only need one?

Maybe I'll just buy one for now. Although, if I need the other later, will I be able to find an exact match? If I don't, I'll have to buy two more and will have wasted the money spent on the first.

So maybe I should go ahead and get two. But what happens if I buy two and then spend the rest of my life in that bed alone? Will I stare in resentment at that second superfluous chunk of mahogany? Will it sit there as a constant reminder of the man who will never use it -- the man I'd hoped for but never found? Will it just become a decorative symbol of disappointment serving as nothing more than a nightly twist of the knife?

And so I choose to do nothing.

Every day I put off making that loaded purchase, and every night I toss the remote onto that pitiful piece of wicker as my glasses fall to the floor and the phone inches closer to its death -- because somehow making that final decision seems far worse than spending one more night with that one nightstand.

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As an addendum, I've one little poignant P.S. to impart. It’s something that kind of breaks my heart. A few years after writing this essay, my then-boyfriend moved in and we eventually got married – but you know what? That stupid little nightstand was never replaced. I just pulled another rickety little wicker table down from the attic and gave him his own wannabe-bedside table.

I wonder if somewhere, deep down, I knew that relationship wasn’t right and he was, therefore, never truly worthy of his own nightstand? And in retrospect, it’s good that I never invested in that matching mahogany set after he moved in with me -- because if I now had to look at my nightstand's useless counterpart, just sitting there by the vacant side of the bed every single night, it’s for damn sure that I’d have chucked it out the window by now.