For some folks, living as a grown up is something that just happens. I am of a certain age therefore I will no longer use the bath towels I stole from my parent’s basement in 2009 that they were probably keeping in the basement to rip up later for rags. I am of a certain age therefore I will no longer drink light beer. I am of a certain age therefore I will no longer let my parents pay for my cell phone.

Others, not so much. And by others, I mean me, and also this guy I live with. Unless prompted or required, we both tend toward a kind of perpetual adolescence, neither of us stepping toward responsibility or adult-like life progress.

What I’m trying to say is this: we are pretty messy and we play a lot of video games and live in ill-suited apartments and we don’t buy furniture.

Our current apartment is definitely ill-suited, in that A) it is disrepair B) it is in a shady neighborhood C) it is impossible and expensive to heat D) there are probably mice and E) it has no dishwasher or laundry However, despite all of it’s flaws, it is large. Huge, actually, compared to our previous living arrangements. We have room to do Wii Fit and sleep guests. We have separate closets and bookshelves. We have a poorly designed eat-in kitchen.

Somewhere in the whirlwind of getting a job and moving and such, it hit me that this is it. This is the life that I will lead from now on, give or take a few thousand dollars a year. As long as I am in this city, this is what I have to work with. No more waiting for a shoe to drop. All shoes are on the ground. Now what?

I decided that if this is the rest of my life, and I have this eat-in kitchen, then I would like a kitchen table to put in it.

Off to Goodwill we went and came back with a scratched up 35 dollar beauty and two chairs that belong in a formal dining room. No matter. A table is a table, a chair is a chair, and I like my kitchen table, I really do. It makes a life different.

Most nights of the week, we sit down and eat dinner together like civilized folks. After work, one person can make dinner while the other sits at the table and have your after-work chats. You have somewhere to put your cookbook, your groceries. If you are feeling lazy slumped on the couch between the hours of 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., you can take yourself over to the table, sit upright, pour a cup of tea and your mood changes. If you have something to work on, but you are afraid to do it, sitting at the kitchen table is nicer than holing yourself up in a bedroom because even if you have your headphones on, you are still part of the flow, not sequestered away, alone. You can grab a snack or a glass of water. You can spread out your papers and books.

It’s a good place to be.

On a similar note, I have also decided that if this is the rest of my life, I would like an iPhone. A 35-dollar table wasn’t much of a fight, but we’ll see how this goes…