Things I learned at 29: How to be extraordinary (and h ow to be a coat rack.)

I learned something about being extraordinary and now I have to tell you. I learned it from a coat rack.

We're moving in three weeks.

We're leaving our quaint and trendy little neighborhood - Roncesvalles Village, home of the Cherry Bomb and Revue Theatre - to move 10 minutes away to a neighborhood we never thought we'd live in. It's one of Toronto's "in transition" neighborhoods, which is sort
of the real estate market's way of saying, "don't walk there alone
after dark... but good investment."

After much deliberation, we're okay with it. Mainly because we have to be - the house is bought and there is no sense in crying over spilled mortgage papers (if I ever write those words again, I implore
you to stop reading this blog.)

In a city like Toronto, you have million-dollar neighborhoods book-ended by areas that we Torontonians affectionately refer to as "up and coming". These "up and coming" pockets house everything from
couples like us (the brunching, weekend thrifting, mid-week dinners,
drunk on Sundays, random weekend trips kind) to Ladies of the Night and
hobos to what we refer to 'round these parts as "crack hoes".

Ah, the city.

I was tempted to put "Buy a house" on my List, but felt that was cheating, since I knew purchasing was inevitable this year. Wanting to buy again had less to do with turning 30 than it had
to do with Rob and I not wanting to get too comfortable. So it didn’t
go on the List.

And screw comfortable.

Our renting days are over and we just feel like it’s time to plant some roots again - oh, you know, paint the walls my preferred shade of not-so-white and hang vintage chandeliers in strange places - that sort
of thing.

When I tell people about the "planting roots" thing, they immediately think we want kids, which we don't. Not now anyway. "So why do you want to settle down then and buy a house?" they ask, which is
valid, I guess, although I'd like to think that we're not buying a
house for any other reason than to just live a little more
extraordinarily than we do right now.

But what is extraordinary?

Let’s face it, the word arrangement is all wrong for something that's supposed to be so great: extra-ordinary. I mean, c’mon. Being just a little ordinary not enough?

Interestingly, while shopping for a table made of reclaimed church pews and then stumbling on this coat rack creation, I just sort of figured it out…

Extraordinary is like adding nice hardware to cheap Ikea kitchen cabinets or wrapping a vintage scarf around the handles of a an old handbag that you love. It’s like adding hot fudge to plain ‘ol vanilla
ice cream or writing a love letter instead of an email. It's taking
something as ordinary as marriage and giving it the details of warm
morning kisses, coffee made just the way you like it and wearing his
shirt to bed because you couldn’t possibly fall asleep without his
scent.

Extraordinary, I learned, simply means taking something ordinary and giving it that little something extra, even if it’s just a place to hang your hat and coat at the end of the day.

Make it extraordinary.