Make Do and Mend

Recently, I’ve felt rather let down by an old friend of mine.

We hadn’t seen each other in a while. It was a friendship that took root back when I was about fifteen, or sixteen. I spent my teenage years growing up with her. She was older than me, and understandably in a different stage of her life. She lived in a big town, with a real job, and wore actual Gucci. Not fake knock off Gucci from Turkey. Through her, I could live vicariously.

It was the start of my “lust affair” with expensive high fashion.

Not that I could afford any of the wonderful clothes she wore. But somehow, at that moment it was enough to just see her wear these beautiful things. It planted the seeds for what would later grow into an unhealthy spending habit. It was something I could aspire to one day, when I grew up, which seemed so far into the future, back when I was only fifteen.

Now at twenty three, “growing up” seems so much harder to define. If I’d asked my teenage self to pin-point at what stage in my life I’d become this lucrative ‘grown-up’, it would be a fairly straightforward answer.

It would be a life after university. In a land where I was no longer a student. I’d have insisted that Future Me would live in a castle, but would probably have settled for just a house. I’d have a car, a job, maybe a partner, and be earning enough to buy myself a pair of real (not Turkey) Jimmy Choos.

It certainly wasn’t a world where I had to source my own cheap car insurance. Or pay for my own dental check-ups. Or discover how costly wooden flooring is.

“Oooh, look at that!” I said, pointing at the stunning dark cedar panels. “That’s what I want in the conservatory.”

I left my boyfriend to load up the trolley, as I marched off in the direction of soft furnishings. Something shiny caught the corner of my eye, and I stopped to admire some bath taps.

“Bath taps! Why, I’d never even thought about them before!”

It wasn’t that I needed new bath taps as such...

It was just my first day “home” shopping since the purchase of the house. In one swift exchange of keys, gone were the days where I’d prefer to drill holes in my eyes than wander around B&Q. Now, I needed to put my own stamp on things. It was essential that I added a personal touch. To everything. Suddenly, even the most mundane things like floorboards had this new, glowing allure…

“Glowing…” I muttered to myself, interrupting my own thoughts. “We’ll definitely need new light shades.”

“Are you sure you we can afford new light shades?” my boyfriend asked, managing to grab my arm before I disappeared down the curtain aisle.

“Of course we can afford new light shades!”

“But the floor comes to over four hundred pounds. Why do we need new bath taps?”

I came to a halt.

“The floor comes to over four hundred pounds?”

“Yes.”

“But it’s just…flooring?”

“Yes.”

“How can they charge that amount of money for something I’ll just walk on?” I asked, genuinely flummoxed.

My boyfriend held my hand as I gingerly removed the bath taps from my trolley. It was a similar story that took place across numerous home and garden stores around South Wales that month. None of which left me as devastated as when I discovered I could only afford to buy half of my dream settee suite.

“But it’s the perfect one!” I wailed. Tears streamed from my eyes, as my boyfriend tried to work out a payment strategy that would allow me to sit comfortably, in my otherwise empty house. (With distinctly average floorboards.)

“It’s just stuff…” I said sombrely. “How can they charge me so much to use things I didn’t even acknowledge I used before?”

My boyfriend sighed. “We can buy half of it now, and the other half later?” he suggested, while I wondered how the hell my friend had ever managed to afford so much designer clobber.

After we’d handed over the money for our half-sofa, me and my boyfriend decided to make a pact. We promised each other that one day, sometime in the future, a long time from now, when we were rich – we would buy the other half of our perfect sofa suite.

When we got the lone half home, I tried to convince myself that my new sofa was a fabulous purchase. A sexy and wonderful buy, that my friend would have been proud of.  Even envied!

But try as I did, there was only so much I could do to convince myself that my new sofa was a cool purchase. And that was by deluding myself.

I hopped on the new sofa, popcorn in hand with my boyfriend next to me, and turned on the telly (which was skilfully balanced on our Move-In boxes.)

That was the moment when my old friend, Carrie Bradshaw (also known in real life as Sarah Jessica Parker) stepped out onto the stage at the BAFTA's.

I felt the deepest pang in my stomach.

It’s not that I was upset with her. I was just disappointed.

Stunned, I turned away to gather my thoughts. Because it is tough trying to pave your way through life. We have bills to pay. Floors to buy. Food is expensive, and even cheap food isn’t necessarily guaranteed to be what you think you’re buying. Fuel, apparently, takes up sixty percent of an average person’s income. We simply don’t have the money to spare on things like personal enjoyment. Sometimes, we have to live vicariously.

So we set ourselves goals. We hold on to our dreams. I believed that one day, I’d have those damned Jimmy Choos. And nice bath taps. And a full settee suite. But until then, I’d keep going. Because life isn’t always glamorous, and when times are tough sometimes we have to make do with staying in, making our own fun, and catching up with old friends.

So there I was.

Sitting on half a sofa.

Envisaging our reunion.

And she couldn’t even be bothered to put on a sparkly freaking frock?

I turned the telly off and began to think to myself.

Maybe it was time to wake up. Maybe now, I was a grown up. Maybe it was time to live my own life.

I began to draft my own television series. I’d make it a better, truer to life reflection of the modern age girl. Who moved to London, and continued to eat Smash every day of her life in the hopes of one day owning a pair of designer heels, but until then, would make do with the cards she’d been dealt.

I’m calling it Sex on the Sofa.