What Ikea Taught Us About Love
Not a sponsored post, but Ikea furniture surprisingly has some lessons for us.
Three months ago, Jor and I did our first Ikea haul and bought a chest of drawers for our unit. We’ve been living together for a while and figured we need more storage space. It was a whole afternoon of looking through the Ikea app and choosing the perfect of chest of drawers for us (White? Brown? With handles? No handles? Three shelves? Four?). When we finally paid for the chest of drawers of our dreams, Ikea did give us the option to put it together for us for an extra fee, but we said, how hard can it be? We can do it ourselves, right?
Those famous last words lead to months of productive procrastination and untouched boxes on the floor. We did start the project eventually, but it proved to be more work than we expected, and for a while we only had the frame and the upper drawer in place. We made do with it for a while, the unfinished chest of drawers becoming a big elephant in the room, ironically taking up storage space.
So, this Valentine’s Day, my only wish was this: that we finally get over this monstrosity.
And indeed, Jor came through. After three whole months since we bought it, the chest of drawers is complete!
This silly project means a lot because it was our first little piece of furniture—an achievement in adulting! It’s also a project that Jor and I worked on together. As this season of love encourages us to be sentimental, I naturally see the metaphor in this: that building a life with someone isn’t as easy as we think. There will be so much inertia to start, so much resistance to continue, and sometimes even temptation to give up. But surprisingly, in the months leading to its completion, Jor and I never bickered over this project. It was frustrating and tiresome, to be sure—what with screws gone missing, a drawer not fitting, a shelf literally falling apart at one point—but we were frustrated and tired together. To my credit, I never nagged about how long this project was taking, and Jor forgave me for getting the measurements wrong. We laughed at ourselves for being so bad at this.
It’s true what they say, you never truly know a person until you’ve done put together a piece of Ikea furniture with them. This whole ordeal has affirmed what I have always known: that I have the best partner to share this life with. In all the chaos of adulthood and growing up, I find solace in knowing Jor is with me, and whatever we have to do, we can do it together.
So yes, Jor came through. We came through. With flowers and dinner, too.
Happy Valentine’s Jor. Thank you for making life more beautiful. I love you.
