Ikea

Dear Lisette,

I love Ikea with a burning, endless passion, the way only a recent college graduate can love a bargain home goods store. 

Ikea makes me feel like a functioning human adult. When I buy a desk chair for $20, I know that I am becoming a more mature person. Likewise, the presence of six tiny spoons (purchased for the low, low price of $2.99) is a symbol of my newfound responsibility. It doesn’t matter that the desk chair is bright green and made of plastic, or that I’ve never used the tiny spoons. Their mere existence in my apartment makes me a grownup, goddammit!

Ikea seduces me with organization. When I’m in the store, I truly believe that a bookshelf/desk combo (only $100!) will drastically improve my life. Like having a place to put all my shit will magically solve all my problems. I will no longer forget homework assignments, flake on my friends, or avoid doing my laundry and cleaning a bathtub.  As a sit on the floor, assembling my beloved bookshelf/desk combo with only my trusty Allen wrench, I know, deep in my heart that this one piece of furniture holds the power to transform me from a lazy, unmotivated dog walker into an efficient productive graduate student. 

Ha. Like any of this is ever going to happen. But while I’m wandering the circuitous paths through bedrooms, kitchens, and offices, I can help but feel this way. I keep going back for the rush.

Plus those meatballs are fucking delicious.

Love,

Gena

Motivation

Dear Self,

It’s been a while since you posted. I know you were busy moving, and that is a terrible and stressful accomplishment, especially when it’s over 90 degrees out, but you told yourself you would post at least once a week, and that just hasn’t been happening.

I often find that the promises I make myself are the hardest ones to keep. I promise I’ll stop snacking after 10pm, throw away my worn out socks, watch less TV, and remember to call my friends more. Yet here I am eating Cheez-Its at midnight, watching True Blood in socks I’ve owned since high school. I’ve collapsed under the weight of all these promises, stuck in a land of not unpacking my dishes or even going outside for that matter.

I’m going to try and change, though. I know that just one more promise to myself thrown on to the small mountain of them I keep in my room, right beside my dirty clothes hamper. I just need a little motivation.

Motivation is a hard thing to come by. Life’s so much easier, if much emptier, without it. And once I get going, I find myself enjoying the task I’ve put off for so long. I just have to start.

So this is it.

I’m going to buy new socks, and throw away the old ones.

Turn off the TV.

Get up off my ass.

And write.

Love,

Gena

p.s. I make no guarantees about the snacking. Cheez-Its are delicious.