This Is Not My Chair

     In the week following my trip to the emergency room, I've been to and from the doctor's office a couple of times.  I've submitted to tests that were inconvenient and unpleasant, all while recovering and trying to maintain something like a normal life at home and work.  It turns out I have a combination of conditions that can be addressed and overcome, or at least endured.  Things will ultimately be OK.  However, my last doctor visit was a bit turbulent.  There was the anxiety of discovering a new ailment, the process of absorbing information and weighing treatment options, considering what path might work with my current insurance.  I was sent off to fetch medicine only to be turned away by the pharmacy because the insurance company would only work directly with the doctor on approving this treatment.  That meant a second trip to the doctor that day, and a long explanation of the circumstances.  I'm still waiting on the arrangements to be made so that I can proceed with getting better.  In short, it was a difficult day, one in which I was forced to fight through unnecessary complications for things to just be OK.

     So, after all the back and forth, when the matter had finally come to rest (at least until the next development,) I started for home.  On the way, I stopped at a store to buy a chair.  It's an odd move, I know.  I really just wanted to go home and forget about the day, but it was something we'd been planning to do, and we were running out of free time to get it done.  Recently, we threw out the chair that's been in our living room for more than 15 years.  The cushions were nearly completely worn out.  The frame was starting to come apart, and sharp metal bits were poking out and catching passersby.  We've talked about replacing it for years, and throwing it out was a way of forcing that decision.  A few months of looking around, and we had decided on our replacement, an armless accent chair in beige fabric with Latin phrases printed over it.  It was simple and neutral without being plain, and it matched the room.  The look was almost like old newsprint.  This is the chair I pointed out to the clerk.  This is the one he searched for in the back room, going back twice to make sure the SKU on the box matched the one on the floor model.  It's the one I bought and brought home, but it's not what greeted me when I opened the box in my living room.

     I sat on the carpet holding the scissors I had used to break the seal and just stared at the swirls of blue and gold and cream peeking at me from the flap I had opened.  After all the struggles I had endured with my medical issues that day, even this one simple accomplishment would not go smoothly for me.  This unexpected furniture was going to cost me another trip out to the store with the bulky package in tow.  I'd have to be prepared to explain why I needed an exchange, maybe even argue for one.  It was too much for one day.

     As luck would have it, a call from my husband interrupted the stare-down I was having with the impostor chair.  He wanted details about my doctor appointment and about my day in general.  Since I was currently mid-breakdown, he got them all.  Health worries, insurance battles, the wild goose chase with the pharmacy, the chair mix-up, even the troubles I had sending him an update message from my recently replaced phone.  When  I was done ranting, he asked me to describe the chair, its colour, pattern and overall look.

     "Does it go with the room?" he wanted to know.

     It wasn't a perfect fit.  The pattern was a little too busy, a little too fancy.  I supposed it blended with the colour scheme we had been developing better than its predecessor had.  It certainly wasn't glaringly out of place.

     "Well, it wasn't what you expected, but someone gave you that chair," he said carefully, "Maybe it's serendipity."  The suggestion that we keep what we got was probably his way of talking me off the ledge.  Really, the colour of a chair is a silly thing to fret over.  Exchanging it wouldn't be worth the trouble.  It is what it is, and I can live with that.

     So, it still feels like the new guy, like it doesn't quite fit in, a guest chair.  But it has its own personality, and it's starting to feel a little more familiar, bit by bit.  Life has a way of giving you what you didn't expect, often when you're not ready to adapt.  If you make yourself open to what it's offering, you might find it's not so tough to accept after all.  You might find you can love what comes your way.  I might find that this really is my chair.