Ode to a Couch.

I'm sitting on a couch. Chocolate brown, smooth leather, fairly comfortable, new. Well, it's a new couch to me, seeing as I've just barely moved to a new place. This new place is a nice place: vaulted ceilings, large open rooms, lots of light, sage green walls and new carpet, good feeling. We have a lawn. We have a garage. We have an attic. We have a living room and a family room, an upstairs and a downstairs, a storage room and a laundry room... we have this leather couch and a leather love seat just like it to my left. Taking a seat on this couch was one of the first things that I tried when I contemplated living here. I came over to check out the house and distinctly remember entering and making a beeline for the upholstered surface I saw. I was pleased.

Several weeks ago, I wasn't necessarily looking for a change but when Julia and Kirsti came to my desk and proposed the idea of me moving in with them, I heard this voice in my head say "Lizzie, that would be a good thing." They are fellow coordinators at the MTC and downright lovely people. I was extremely happy in my ward, I had a nice big basement room to myself that I loved, I had covered parking, I had awesome neighbors and friends... but no couch.

 You need to understand something about me. When my dad and brother came down on Monday to help me move in to my new house, my brother looked around at the multiple seating options throughout the living area and asked me, "Have you decided which couch you are going to be regularly sleeping on yet?" You see, my friends, I suffer from an nasty case of insomnia and my one relief is called couch-hopping. I will lay in my sleepless bed for sleepless hours but once I blearily get up, drag a blanket and pillow into the next room, and plop myself down on a couch, I'll be dancing around in dreamland within minutes. Couches are my saving grace. If you ask my parents, they'll tell you that growing up I spent more time sleeping on couches than I ever did in my bed.

But alas, Millrace #6 lacked any sort of furniture piece that even remotely resembles a couch. Instead of a couch, my last apartment was furnished with what I like to call The Beast. He used to be green at one point in his abnormally long life but has now faded into more of a greengreyishblah (that will be a crayola color soon, you make my words.) He's technically in the family of "sectionals" but you know how almonds and peaches "belong" in the same family? Well,

The Beast: Sectionals

as

Almonds: Peaches 

Catching my drift? The Beast had quite the abusive childhood. His cushions caught some sort of debilitating disease back in the 1300s and as a result are grossly deformed. Around the time America was discovered, the wooden boards that make up his frame became the location for the greatest termite war in the history of time, as proved by the instant sinkage of the tush that happens every time to sit in a certain section. The stuffing in upholstery of The Beast was actually from the first batch of Eli Whitney's first cotton gin. I'm pretty sure that some Aborigines used him as a boat at one time, which accounts for his severely warped frame and the water stains near the bottom. Most recently, he was taken sledding by a bunch of drunk frat boys from ASU, which caused deep gashes in his already fragile material. And somehow, The Beast ended up in Millrace apartment number 6. He'd run away from ASU and had gone to Millrace to die... but the delusional landlady discovered him in his resigned state and was for some reason under the impression that he still had some fight in him yet.

I admit when I first moved in, I was entirely ignorant to The Beast's history and fully believed that he could fulfill his measure of creation as a couch. But after 30 minutes of painful napping on this dilapidated daveno had me whistling another tune (read: that one Chopin piece) and begging my landlady to put the Beast out of his misery. Unfortunately, my landlady is kind of like a pioneer- she will use something until it's no longer standing and then she'll chew on the leather pieces to survive. And she was going to use The Beast's leather if it was the last thing she did.

And OH. How I suffered! So many sleepless nights remained sleepless without an adequate couch to give me relief. So when I came to visit my now home for the first time and sat on not one but THREE wonderfully sleepable and comfortable couches, I knew that a change needed to be made.

Last night was the best I've slept in a while and amazingly enough it was all in my bed. I think just knowing that I have couches near is comforting enough for now.