”Deliver me from Swedish furniture. Deliver me from clever art. May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect.” —Chuck Palahniuk; Fight Club.

The above is one of my favorite literary quotes.

A statement (as I interpret it) against the dangers of conformity; of contentment and settling. A reminder that we should eschew the trendy, surface, convenient trappings of “success” and instead of “arriving” we should always maintain a forward motion and momentum. A hunger. An urge to do more than skim the surface. That we should feed the need and desire to dive deep.

A warning against embracing the cookie cutter and mass produced; to chose substance over convenience. To above all, remain an individual; unique and broken and flawed as that may be.

This quote repeats itself over and over and over again as I excitedly await the arrival of my IKEA bookcases.

Have I sold out?

Have I done the right thing?

And where for the love of all that is good, is that Swedish furniture delivery truck (two hours late) that I need to be delivered from?

I blame it on the books.

So many, many, many books.

So many books that we decided, early on, when first touring our house in fact, which room would be our “library.”

We claimed it simultaneously. Both arriving at the conclusion that it would be the perfect space to house the books, some chairs, and ourselves.

A hide out. A fort. A place where we could huddle up against this world and escape into the world of words.

We sealed up the odd doorway in the room that led to the laundry.

We painted the walls a deep, mysterious blue.

We hung some art on the odd wall out and debated on the bookcases.

In a perfect world, I would love to have made the bookcases ourselves. Picked out the perfect wood in the perfect hue. Cut to the perfect dimensions.

Or….hired it done by a local woodworker.

But….things are not always perfect and sometimes (most times) we have to compromise.

After running the numbers we soon discovered that just purchasing supplies would put us way over budget for this project right out of the gate.

Same for hiring it done. Add in the hassle of people in and out of the house and the stress of hoping they show and hoping they do it right, made this option less appealing.

So we sold our souls and turned to Swedish furniture.

Our closest IKEA is in Jacksonville Florida.

We made the short trek late last year.

We navigated the maze, sidestepped the cafe, and arrived in the bookcase section relatively unscathed.

I quickly decided on the “Billy” bookcase. It comes in many sizes and variations which would make configuring the set up to fit our needs much easier to do.

We returned home and measured the room. We played with different options and debated different features before finally arriving at a final “blueprint.”

And then…..COVID hit.

The world shut down and people started working from home.

And….I assume assembling home offices of their own which included buying up all of the Billy bookcases, because soon there were none to be found.

For months and months and months and months we hit the “refresh” button on our order only to informed that items were out of stock.

Until….a week ago.

I was in bed watching a movie, when my husband, breathless, came rushing in. The order had somehow, finally, miraculously, gone through.

Having resigned myself to the fact that these mass produced, dime a dozen, generic bookcases were going to be the downfall of our library, I was both elated and stunned.

And then I waited.
And debated.

Hoping I had not settled.

Hoping that we could take “Billy’s” bones and flesh him out.

Hoping this generic template could be tweaked to fit our (my) vision.

Hoping, as my ears strained, listening for the truck, that although it may not be perfect; I could be forgiven and I could, despite the mantra repeating in my head, be content.