All it took was one short glance at a moss green velvet couch on my phone screen.
Someone in a group I follow for decor inspiration online had just seen it for sale and was asking the group what they all think.
That couch, an ultimate object of desire in my mind.
My response to definitely buy it had at least 3 exclamation points, I think.
The part that I didn’t comment was that,
in that moment,
I wanted that couch more than anything.
The idea of laying on it was so romantic.
Surely laying oneself across it would transport you, mind and body, to being draped across mossy river rocks, beside your truest love, next to a quiet forest stream.
Immediately, I started thinking about all of the other colors that I would pair with that beautiful shade: Hot pink, bold yellow, navy blues, florals and stripes.
The possibilities felt endless to me.
In my mind it would sit up against a window with the sun highlighting its tufted ridges, as the shadows from numerous exotic house plants would cast dapples of shade.
I pictured it as the centerpiece of the vibrant room of my dreams, full of quirky paintings and interesting things to look at that you couldn’t just find any old place.
I love when a space feels carefully curated, and like you could spend hours just looking at things.
Before long I had envisioned an entire house:
My imaginary house –
A house that felt fully “Me,” and I wondered why that house looked so different from the one I have in the real world, when I am a full-grown adult, capable of buying and changing things.
That couch sent me down a mental spiral until I rested at the bottom, at the heart of it:
In these middle years, I see so many pieces of myself that I have tucked away.
I found myself asking why I have bought so much of what other people are selling,
and paid for it with parts I’ve broken off of my own self?
The space I have created for myself in real-life is much more toned down, practical, and plain than that couch would make things.
I share a household with a family not quite as “visionary” as I see myself.
So often I feel like I know better, but I have given in and followed their lead.
My home has color, it has life and some things I love, but the true me would be more bursting.
Colors, patterns, bold quirkiness.
It would be more…..well, EVERYTHING.
Eye to eye with that green couch,
I thought about who I really am inside,
and wondered why I don’t always freely express all of the moss green velvet parts of ME.
The messages that I am too much, too bold, too opinionated, too loud have so often, in my lifetime, swirled around me;
But I was made for travel and adventure, open mic nights, painting on ocean cliffs, menu items that I have never tried.
I was made for laugh lines in the sunshine, exploring, learning new things.
I was not made for simple and boxy;
Not in couches or any other thing.
My spirit needs train rides through the Swiss mountains, and – who knows –
maybe even to be in some remote village in Asia about to eat some kind of stick topped with BBQed bug legs.
I want to be an old woman that wears big overalls splattered with dozens of colors of paint.
I want to harvest, and feed, and sing, and dance.
I even think I want chickens, though I know nothing about raising them.
I want campfires, and snowdrift.
Some night, when the moon is full, I want to drop all of my clothes by the edge of the water somewhere, and wade slowly out until I feel surrounded by positively everything.
All of my life I’ve realized that not everyone gets me.
So many of you will just close this and move on after you read,
but I believe if someone out there will truly listen,
this moss green couch and I are here to say something important about covering whatever your moss green velvet is with linen in a more neutral shade.
I have spent too long tucking in the frowned upon edges.
I have tried long enough to be what people want from me.
I have put forth the more easy to swallow version, while inside of me is a girl that still wants to
be barefoot, and wild, and free.
I stared at that green couch asking myself a question:
What if the way I decorated my house, the things I did, the music I listened to, and where I spent my time always truly represented the real me?
Would there be anyone out there who understands the parts that fantasize about living in an RV and just driving for a while, wherever the road leads?
The part that would like to be a foster parent?
The part that really likes rap music?
The part that wants to give a home to every stray?
But, does it truly matter who else understands it,
as long as I remember that there is purpose in the fact that,
in this whole colorful world,
I am the only ME?
I have tucked in all of my “too much” parts for long enough,
Tried to cover them with boring beige,
but something is starting to change.
The moss green may have been covered up for a while, but it never went away.
Maybe this is why old women are often called “eccentric.”
Maybe they’re not crazy.
Maybe they’re just starting to uncover things.
After all,
All we hide only turns into longing.
All we cover becomes things we crave.
I am learning that who we really are deep inside
– what fuels and fires us –
may just show up,
begging to be recognized,
in a picture of a moss green velvet couch one day.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
