When you are young and you leave home you acquire some strange furniture combinations, and also adopt all sorts of unneeded objects.
For instance I remember collecting numerous colanders from my flatmates fathers bunch of things he didn't want. Why do you need more than one colander? You also learn to be quite flexible in your usage of material goods. A colander makes a very fine rat nest. We had a very old electronic organ in the kitchen that didn't work and a dishwasher in our laundry (why?). My garden grew in saucepan lids hanging from hat racks and clothes racks. I didn't pay anything for my bed, wardrobe, drawing desk or writing desk and all other furniture in my room was made from crates.
Something compels you to hoard everything because it you don't own much. But you feel that you're floating in a white cubic sea where the flotsam that gathers about you is sort of shifting and piling up. Made from chipboard and mustard coloured velvet. You do feel adrift.
I'm writing about this now because I am sleeping on a new couch that we acquired just today. We actually acquired two couches, a lounge chair and a bookshelf. We only paid for the bookshelf and the other items were given to us by my flatmates father. A lot of my things are currently piled on my bed because we shampooed the carpet and it hasn't dried, so I cannot return the things back under the bed.
It's fascinating how well you get can by just waiting. Every piece of furniture I own has been given to me, and I've eventually culled it down to a bunch of pieces that don't look to kaleidoscopic with each other. Other things I've been gifted: a bike (but it got stolen), all my bed sheets, all the cutlery/crocery I use, a great deal of my art supplies, huge majority of my books (and I think it's a cohesive collection!) not to mention a lot of my clothes. If you wait long enough these things sort of come to you, and if you wait some more, you begin to hone the skill of selective culling until you own a collection of possessions that isn't incredibly meagre, and also not too gaudy.
I do feel incredibly lucky.
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