When I moved into my first apartment, I had exactly zero furniture. The first night I actually lived there, I sat on the ground and ate falafel sandwiches from Sultan Market in a giddy display of what I believed to be adult grit and fortitude. Eventually, I furnished my home with an eclectic mix of hand-me-downs, Goodwill gems, incomprehensible Ikea finds, and my pìece de résistance: my couch.

I spent weeks looking for the perfect sofa. I scoured the Internet, searched images of living rooms, and visited furniture stores. I knew that I would spend most of my time in my apartment on my couch or in my bed, so it felt alarmingly important that I make the right decision. The couch had to be a neutral color that would blend well with the cobalt blue and ivory color scheme in which I planned to decorate my humble living room. It also had to be soft but firm, stain resistant, and comfortable enough to double as a guest bed for my copious visitors.

Eventually, I bit the bullet and went shopping with my mom with the intention of actually purchasing a couch. We went to Darvin furniture on LaGrange Road in Orland and successfully dodged predatory salespeople as, like Goldilocks, I sat on couch after couch. As soon as I saw it, I knew my couch was the one. It was downy soft, deep chocolate corduroy of the perfect length, depth, softness, and support. I sat on it, I crossed my legs, I dipped my head to rest it on the armrest. This is my couch, I thought, and likely exclaimed.

Beyond my car, my couch was the most expensive item I had ever purchased. I already felt like a hemorrhaging chest wound of cash as I set out to move into an apartment, furnish it, and live like a functioning adult. The couch felt like an indulgence. I still remember swiping my credit card, signing the receipt, and asking about the Broyhill warranty. “Did I need a warranty? What could I possibly do to ruin my couch?” I thought. At the time, my overactive imagination could conjure approximately 1,000 things. I could spill hot grease all over it or red wine. Worse yet, thieves could dig knives into its fluffy cushions in search of money or jewels, bullets could pierce my windows and blow it to smithereens – dusty puffs of fabric rising with a soft “thwaap” as hot bullets pierced my beautiful sofa.

I can’t actually remember how long I lived without my most important piece of seating, but it wasn’t long. When the couch was delivered, I knew exactly where I wanted them to put it – just under my ceiling-high windows, against the wall facing my bedroom and my ungainly, boxy, antenna television. I was enamored. I sat on the couch, running my fingers along the smooth fabric, stretching my body along its length, imagining all the life this piece of furniture might see me through.

See me through, it did. For nearly eight years, that couch supported me. Its cushions propped me up as I worked and cradled me as I rested. In moments of fatigue or despair, I would tuck myself into the corner and call a friend, or my mom, or simply bury my face in the cushions and weep. In the throws of new love or infatuation, I would fling myself across it, one knee slung across the back, the other bent underneath me, chatting endlessly on the phone or staring at my hideous white paneled ceiling, my hormone addled brain high on the future and possibility.

In the summer, I would lie on my couch in tanks and shorts, glistening, bemoaning the lush warmth of the fabric and cursing my inefficient “central air.” In the winter, I would bundle myself in layers against the incessant draftiness of my vintage apartment and sit, ensconced, in the corner of my beloved couch – at times lifting a hand to check the relative temperature of my frigid nose.

Occasionally, I would question the couch. I would think that I needed a change, and maybe the couch was the thing to go. Always, I would change my mind. I would buy a new throw or a new set of pillows – a new rug even, but the couch remained. Friends fell in love too. “It’s a great couch,” they would say. “I wish I were with you right now, just sitting on your couch,” they would admit.

If those walls could talk? Oh no…if that couch could talk. My couch was witness to countless gossip sessions, late night confessions, breakdowns, breakups, makeups, and moments of absurdity, beauty, and hilarity. At its best moments, the couch could fit four grown adults seated side by side – without throw pillows, and the times that it was piled with people were my favorite. Christmas parties, girls’ trips, visits from family or dear friends – the couch I loved was filled with the people I loved. It was the site of the composition of so much of my first blog and of this endeavor. It was a piece of furniture steeped in life, and love, and words.

My couch made the move with me to my condo last November. The movers wrapped it tightly in plastic wrap and hauled it down two flights of stairs in UK Village and up two more here in Pilsen. It made the transition smoothly, and looked sharp in my new home, although the back showed telltale signs of fading from the gorgeous high windows it flanked for so many years.

Nine months after its big move, my couch was called upon to support a tiny new life whose fluffy, ivory-white existence was incongruous with the deep chocolate fabric that originally drew me to it in the first place. Banned from my bed, the couch has been Flann’s domain from day one, and at first, she looked perfect on it – her baby-chick fluff veritably glowing against the dark brown backdrop. Her fur stayed mostly on her body and was easily brushed or vacuumed off. When Flannery was just eleven weeks old, a friend visited and commented on the lack of dog hair in my home – “I thought there would be fur everywhere!” she exclaimed. “Yeah, she’s not shedding that much yet, “ I replied.

“Yet.” Oh, how prophetic that word was. By December, I found myself in the midst of a fur-pocalypse that manifested most catastrophically on my beloved couch. I bought a brush called a “furminator” to combat the shedding. I bought a hand-vac intended solely for pet hair. I brushed Flannery daily and vacuumed twice a day. While I initially refused to cave and cover the fabric of my favorite piece of furniture, I was soon swathing every inch of it in blankets that I washed every few days. I spent my whole life in a battle with fur. In December, I bought a very expensive Shark vacuum cleaner and in early January, I made a tough decision. After nearly nine years, it was time to say goodbye.

This time, I had two objectives, and one of them was simplified by a very specific criterion. Though I might have to sell a kidney to do it, I would buy a fur-proof leather couch. The second objective? Rehome the piece that had seen me through so much. After an exhaustive online search for couches that wouldn’t bankrupt me, I settled on the Sven sofa from Article. It is stunning, feels like butter, smells like heaven, is “Flannery colored,” and can comfortably fit me, my dog, and another adult human in a movie or Netflix watching situation. In a pinch, it can fit five humans across – and I can’t wait until it has the chance to prove me right on that estimate. While I bought it sight unseen, I fell instantly in love upon its delivery. When you know, you know, am I right?

As for rehoming my trusty and supportive friend, my sister in law’s friend’s husband’s mom found herself in need of a couch. The day my Article sofa was delivered, the friend, her husband, and their roommate showed up to cart my freshly vacuumed couch away in a Uhaul they rented by the hour. Before they arrived, I ran my fingers along the soft corduroy, plucking stray white hairs along my path, and I said goodbye. As Marie Kondo would suggest, I thanked my couch for everything it had been for me, and everything it would continue to be in the future.

Once my dearly beloved furniture was tucked in a truck on its way to new adventures, I went back into my condo and flopped down onto the fragrant, decadent softness of my Sven. I flung my legs out long and looked at my dog, cozy and curled in the corner – her velvet snout on the cylindrical bolster pillow. Over time, this couch will develop a patina – richer and more beautiful than anything that could be glimpsed in the soft ridges of brown corduroy. The tears and sweat, dirt and sunlight, love and loss, time and experience – they will scar this leather. Rather than mar the natural fabric, though, those scuffs and scrapes, smudges and smears will enliven this couch – give it character and charisma, charm and class. Those scars, visible when before they went unseen, will tell my story. It is one I can’t wait to write.

Until next time…