I enjoy decorating. Finding and placing and arranging things pretty. My house is now full of things I love from my childhood home that scatter memories of those I love and those waiting for me in Heaven.
I pin décor and arrangements on Pinterest – pictures of mantels and shelves, bookcases and walls.
And decorated coffee tables.
There was a day when my coffee table held pretty things. Strategically placed and dusted and shined.
Slowly, the coffee table became a place where I propped my feet as I nursed my babies. It has held finger prints of toddlers scaling its sides. It is now often sticky with cereal milk, or pancake syrup. It serves as a Yahtzee and Uno-playing table.
No beautiful coffee table books reside there, but instead a menagerie of stuff that manages to take up residence at some point on this four-legged stuff-holder: Southern Living, homeschool books, an IPad, ear buds, DVDs cases, Josh’s white rags, my tattered Bible and journal, pens, pencils, and various remotes (all in a pretty basket, of course).
Not that ALL of that is there at the same time.
Well, maybe sometimes.
But my coffee table reflects my life. Not only my life now, but how it has evolved.
From freakishly- tidy and arranged to functional and lived-in.
The table is scuffed and the stain is rubbed off in places. Feet places. Truth be told, we could use a new one.
I clean it, polish it, straighten things on it, and cull out unnecessary items. Sometimes I consider placing some pretty candles or an arrangement of books.
But then I think of the feet that will prop on it and decide to leave those things for the shelves.
Those can stay pretty. The coffee table for now will be functional.
I may or may not have years to come of “pretty coffee table”. I’ve heard moms say that when their children are grown and gone, and they can have things the way they want them. Or empty-nester moms with impeccably-decorated houses who say it wasn’t’ always that way.
But with my Joshua, I may always have a “child” around. And I hope to have grandbabies scale my coffee table one day in the future.
So I can gaze at Pinterest and lovely tables. Mine is fine for now. But I may go clean last night’s pizza sauce off of it.