An Unplugged TV with a Remote Glued to the Nightstand

On the motel bed are a few grocery bags filled with what is left of my life. I’ve checked into a big-city downtown room and the view is beautiful out my window to the courtyard it’s a lot of concrete a couple of hookers hanging out and a meth addict beginning his evening it’s better than being beaten with a belt.

I sip on my soda it’s in a can I sit at the room’s desk (there is no motel stationary) and compose a letter to my father to tell him I’m doing okay and starting over he’ll probably never read it, but I’ll send it to him anyway he hasn’t thought about me in years, I’m sure and it’s totally okay I lick the envelope closed and put it on the desk to mail tomorrow.

I grab another soda from the mini-fridge it keeps them cool (at perfect temperature) I don’t drink alcohol because alcohol would hit me repeatedly with very real fists and it knocked me against walls (I’d bounce off them when hit hard enough) he would punch me when he was drinking and it happened all the time. I don’t drink alcohol I’ll have a soda or tap water that’s totally okay and thank you for offering, but no.

I look around me…

There is an unplugged TV and a remote glued to the nightstand and it is paradise with the motel’s street sign flashing neon in my window repeatedly at night and I don’t mind the hookers say hello to me when I’m writing poetry in the concrete motel courtyard they’re sweet on me ‘cause they know I won’t hurt them there is a lot of power in that knowing you can spend time with someone who won’t hurt you.

In my plastic bags are a few changes of clothes, a couple of pairs of underwear and socks my dignity and newly awakened sense of self-preservation a dull raiser with an extra blade, a bar of soap a toothbrush and a paperback novel and my unfinished poems.

I look around me…

There is an unplugged TV and a remote glued to the nightstand and I’m okay with that and the wallpaper reminds me of my mother I smile at the peeling roosters and apples they’ve had better days but I haven’t I’m not being knocked in the head with a glass object so today is turning out okay I celebrate the peeling roosters and apples.

The polished and silver sports car. The expensive evenings drinking out of crystal goblets it’s all stuff it’s all material and the friends who were his and only his evenings of worrying if I’d make it out alive bruises everywhere (only where you can’t see them) who cares about the sports car? none of it really matters it really doesn’t.

I look around me…

An unplugged TV and a remote glued to the nightstand I smile because it’s (unexpectantly) perfect and it’s mine.

I plug in the unplugged TV and it works. I, out loud, cheer the luxury Oh, my goodness (!) I haven’t seen this show in forever and I love it as I sit on the bed next to my plastic bags and I watch the show it’s hysterical and I laugh the entire 30 minutes (it’s The Big Bang Theory on some network that repeats the episodes) one of my new hooker friends knocks on the door “I’m fine I’m more than fine”, I tell her, as the TV blares behind me she snaps her gum and looks back at me quizzically “Okay, baby as long as you is alright” (I think we’re becoming good friends).

I have a plugged in TV and a remote glued to the nightstand and I have tomorrow and the next day and days after that to be here to be me to rebuild to rebuild to learn to be me as me.

Tomorrow, I’ll shower and dress and walk to the government building a few blocks away to survive until I can do it on my own

So, life can begin again

So, life can begin again

I have a working television and a remote glued to the nightstand and I’m suddenly beginning to understand what it is to be happy.

Jackie French Koller once said and I quote, “There are two ways to be rich: One is by acquiring much, and the other is by desiring little.”

Minimalism is a word that carries a lot of weight these days. Ironic, considering it refers to a lifestyle that is all about living with less. During the pandemic, we all have learnt some lessons for life, like I did! I’m a twenty-five-year-old who has great love for clothes, footwear, make-up, good food etc, like any other young adult.

In the pandemic, when all the services were shut and only things required for survival were available, we all realised that our life is much more than the clothes we wear, the fancy restaurants, movies etc. This pandemic has actually taught me the value of life, family and health. From the moment we’re born, we’re told to pursue more. But we all know it’s not true. We all know, deep-down, that happiness cannot be bought at a departmental store—more is not necessarily better. We’ve just been told the lie so many times we begin to believe it.

Unfortunately, for some, the idea of minimalism is just too counter-intuitive. It’s an approach to life they have never been in-