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For what seems like (and might very well be) the hundredth (500th?) time, I recently found myself scrolling through a home decor website, considering some area rugs. I was about to click on eBay to do a compare/contrast with some vintage rugs I'd viewed earlier when my finger froze on the trackpad. How many times had I done that exact same thing and, ultimately, not purchased so much as a carpet sample? I didn't know.
I'd lost count.
This sort of thing isn't really like me. I'm not the biggest fan of shopping, especially for big-ticket items...I like the occasional window shopping excursion, and I like flea markets and thrift shops and yard sales, but "regular" shopping? Meh. I'm all about Amazon Prime. I don't mosey around the mall, seeing what's new, perusing the sale flyers, considering my choices. When it comes to shopping, most of the time I'm pretty much:
...but with this particular purchase? It's something I've been doing for years.
Like, ten years.
Why am I stuck on this particular thing, when I'm relatively decisive in my everyday life? Because I'm clearly stuck. I mean, I've purchased a whole HOUSE in the interim, complete with a shiny new 30-year mortgage; it's not like I have a fear of commitment or anything.
For a long time I thought it was a perfectionist tic: I had to find just the right one, the perfect rug. Other stuff could be---and was!---less than ideal, but for some reason, the rug had to be The One.
Except in the interim, I purchased a couple of "placeholder" rugs (the latest one retired due to accidents while my new dog and I worked out a bathroom schedule)---both nondescript, serviceable, neutral cotton or jute rugs that did nothing for me aesthetically but covered the floor. And in the meantime, I keep searching for The Ultimate Rug online, wandering around out in the weeds, no closer to a purchase than I had ever been.
Finally, this week, it clicked: that rug is unfinished business, and I guess my subconscious wasn't quite done chewing on it. It's a relic of a time in my life when things were really stressful, kind of up in the air, and for some reason, my brain got stuck on this one, otherwise random decision (or non-decision, to be more accurate).
See, the first round of online rug shopping took place during my last job, a short, ill-fated stint working at a magazine. I had just moved into a small downtown apartment with wood floors. My previous place had been carpeted, and I'd sold my old rugs before relocating from Boston, so I started looking at replacements (besides---even if I'd still had 'em, I never would have been able to steam clean the old smoke smell out of 'em!). I'd just narrowed it down to a choice between a striped flatweave number from Dash & Albert and a vintage Turkish kilim I liked the looks of on eBay...and then, ::: POOF! ::: The magazine folded almost overnight, taking my job with it.
Needless to say, I was not going to be buying a rug when I didn't know where my next rent check money was coming from. Instead, I focused hard on getting a new job, temped to pay the bills in the meantime, and---in my spare time---kept looking at rugs.
Like I said: stuck.
Look, we all get stuck on things in life. We table decisions for later, endlessly looping back but never quite resolving the issues that are troubling us. We are asked to decide one course of action or another, and freeze instead, unsure of how to move forward. We are faced with choices, and either avoid actually making them, or make the same bad ones over and over, expecting different results (and vaguely disappointed or disheartened when the outcome doesn't improve).
Getting UN-stuck, I think, has a lot to do with acknowledging the issue---whatever it is---and making a conscious decision to face it, deciding on a new course of action to address it, and, once you've done that, consciously deciding to move forward. Make no mistake: it's often really hard to break old, reflexive patterns of thought or compulsive behaviors. It really does take conscious effort and focus to deal with them, and it can feel uncomfortable while you're figuring out how to do that.
But it's almost always worth the effort. And hey! Maybe someday soon, I'll be able to finally click that "BUY" button and feel the soft, comforting feel of resolution between my toes.
Who's Your Little Buddy?
(Big thanks to anodnhajo for his hard work taking care of this!)
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(Last updated 8/18/13)
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