I know it is cliché for a man to have an attachment to a recliner, but clichés exist because they are generally consumed with truth. So, cliché or not, I had an attachment to my recliner, and my recliner has now “moved on.”

I knew this day would come, because my wife had been telling me it had to come. She never gave me a specific time, but there was a non-negotiable understanding that it would definitely come. I did have supporters along the way. My father-in-law, a fellow armchair admirer, appreciated my recliner and attempted to softly lobby with his daughter on my behalf. My mom would make subtle comments as well, soliciting for her son. But we were up against a formidable opponent in my wife, who tastefully decorated our house into a comfortable home. Furthermore, my wife had the silent but strong backing of my talented mother-in-law, who owned a successful custom furniture store for a decade. Anytime the topic was discussed over the years, it was clear they were never pro-recliner.

My wife is simple, sleek, and rustic, all adjectives she uses to describe her decorating style. My recliner? None of those, according to her definitions of those words.  But it sure was comfortable. I always considered myself sitting in the recliner instead of on it. On was for our couch, but in was reserved for my recliner and its cloth embrace. Depending upon perspective, the recliner might not have been the most visually appealing piece of furniture, but it was mine.

All of which leads to another cliché: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Others saw it as bulky and old, but to me it was comfortable and formed to the contours of my body. But more than anything, what I really saw were memories, bringing me to the ultimate issue with finally discarding the recliner. I have a difficult time letting go of tangible items that produce intangible memories. Even though I will always have the memories, I still need the physical reminder. For me, throwing away the recliner represented a separation with the past, and I struggled with this.

My grandfather bought the recliner in 1986 when he and my grandmother moved from their house into a condominium. My grandmother died suddenly shortly thereafter, and my grandfather, a tough German immigrant who spent his eighteenth birthday alone on a ship to America, became more hardened following her death.

To understand the type of person my grandfather was is to understand how he used this recliner. There is little analysis needed to identify the popular appeal of a recliner: (1) it allows for the full extension and support of your legs; and (2) it is cushiony, soft, and just overall comfortable.

Well, my grandfather never used the chair to actually recline; instead, he kept it shut and utilized a separate footrest positioned in front of the recliner. Additionally, he did not like that the recliner was soft and comfortable, so he crafted a thick wood “cushion” for the seat, wrapping the cushion in a thin fabric to presumably avoid the visual contradiction of wood being utilized to make a recliner less comfortable. Basically, he bought a recliner, but did not like that it reclined or that it was soft, which is like buying a car but disliking the fact that it drives. But that was an exemplification of who he was, and there was definitely no changing him.

Despite this, I would routinely go to his place and spend summer nights watching baseball while sitting in that recliner. My family did not have cable at the time, so it was my only way to watch the Pirates. Risking rear splinters, I would sit in that chair, sip glass bottles of Dad’s root beer, and watch the sport I love with my only surviving grandparent.

When he died of lung cancer when I was fifteen, the recliner was transplanted to my mom’s basement. I read books, watched sports and movies, and played video games, all while sitting in it. When my best friend, Doug, and I inexplicably decided to alternate sleeping over each other’s house for the final weeks of high school, I slept in it those nights while Doug slept on a nearby couch. When my future wife called my house for the first time, I was sitting in the recliner, playing video games with Doug and listening to Cypress Hill’s Rock Superstar.

When my wife and I purchased our house, she moved her furniture into our new home, but the only furniture I contributed was the recliner. I do not remember telling her about my plans for it – I just brought it over and placed it in our family room.

As the recliner settled into its third different domicile, I realized I was not the only mammal who admired the recliner, as our dog, Sophie, claimed the recliner as her resting spot of choice. We began sharing joint custody of it, and she would sit on the floor and stare at me when I was in it, applying canine pressure for me to relocate. I would sit in my chair with Sophie asleep in a ball on the couch, momentarily leave the room, return shortly thereafter to find her in the exact circular position in the recliner, seemingly teleporting to displace me.

Immediately following her eighth birthday, Sophie started innocently limping one day. Three months later, she died of bone cancer. She continued to lay in the recliner, with her tumorous leg visibly enlarged, resting comfortably despite her physical demise. She spent her final weeks entrenched in the recliner. She could not even walk toward the end, but she still had the strength to push herself up into the chair. I gladly ceded my special spot to her during those final weeks.

When we welcomed our daughter, the recliner did not disappoint and was perfect for holding a newborn. I held her, fed her, and gazed at her, all while sitting in the recliner. When she was colicky and we had no idea how to get her to stop crying, we would sit in the recliner and place her stomach along the tops of our legs. When she was learning to walk, she used the recliner as support for her cautious steps.

On one particular occasion, the chair literally exerted an indelible memory. I sat and extended my legs for a normal recline, only to discover that something had fallen from the recliner. Looking at the floor, I discovered one of my grandfather’s lighters, fifteen years after he last sat in the chair. As soon as I saw this, memories of him resurfaced into my consciousness. I remembered the distinct smell of his Half & Half tobacco he used for his pipe, the sight of him packing the tobacco with his thick hands, and the sound of the side of his lips opening and closing to blow out smoke as he lit the pipe.

And this brings me to another cliché, the one I always wanted to avoid: All good things must come to an end. When my wife made a change to our family room this past summer to provide additional play space for our daughter, I knew the recliner’s days were dwindling. The recliner’s new position was awkward, partially impeding the walkway entering the family room. My wife started dropping stronger queues that it was time, but I did not want to acknowledge it, even though I knew she was right. Thirty years exacted a toll on the chair, resulting in a triangulation of discolored, worn fabric.

When we recently got our carpet cleaned and needed to move the furniture out of the room, the recliner made its last move . . . to the garbage. After shimmying it out to the end of the driveway in a misty rain, I sat in it one last time, in the dark, out in the street.

At my wife’s suggestion, I cut a small piece of the fabric to keep. She knew how difficult it was for me to let go of the chair, because it was not really ever about the chair itself. It was about my grandfather and spending time with him. It was about my friendship with Doug. It was about Sophie, the best dog we ever had, curling up in the chair. It was about our daughter, and me holding her as a baby and watching her grow. It was all of these memories that I struggled to separate from the chair itself because they felt more secure with the physical presence of the chair.

Combine all of this with the fact it truly was a comfortable chair, well this was the icing on an already very sweet cake.

Ever since I can remember, I have loved to write. Oddly though, ever since I can remember, I have taken every opportunity to avoid pursuing this passion. It is a paradox difficult to explain, and, until now, I have purposefully evaded attempting to expose the truth behind this curious relationship of passion and avoidance.

My first inclination is to claim I was obstructed by the tributaries of life, which is true to a certain extent, but is that really the ultimate truth? Life only got in the way because I let it. I was too passive and there will always be a life excuse for anyone who wants to find one. School . . . family . . . job . . . health? These all consumed significant portions of any given capsule of my life, but they are convenient excuses.

As I force myself to dig deeper, shavings of truth begin to surface.

I have always possessed a multitude of ideas about which to write but could never focus on any singular path. There have been days I want to write about baseball. Other days I wanted to write about personal life experiences. Other days, I wanted to write comedically. Despite these ideas and desires, I have felt like someone with a full tank of gas ready for a trip to commence, but who never actually leaves because I could not decide where to go.

But this impediment can be diminished with this forum; it is a writing canvas with no restrictions. If the day presents me with an incredible personal experience, I can share this experience. If the day presents me with a comical occurrence, I can share this occurrence. I have thought about the freeing reality of a blog for a while, so the restrictive, singular excuse can essentially be mitigated.

But as I dig even further, I discover what feels closer to the core truth.

While the above reasons have substance, I think the true reason is because I have always been afraid of writing – not the act itself, but how others would view my writing and the sentiments expressed therein. There is a distinct vulnerability linked with the permanence of exposing thoughts in writing. I have spent my life as an unquestioned introvert. There are roles I undertake that force me to be extraverted, whether that be captaining a softball team or working in management, but introversion is my core. To sit in a quiet room by myself and write, my introverted self is satisfied because I am in a safe place.

Consequently, lots of people in my past would say I am quiet, and there is truth to this. I am generally reserved until I feel comfortable with a specific situation or individual. How long it takes me to feel comfortable can vary. I sat beside my future wife as freshmen in high school history and never said a word to her. Fast forward to our senior year and I sat directly in front of her in statistics and still never shared a single word with her. She did not know a single thing about me other than I was quiet. Which is an anecdotal manner of expressing that people can think different things about a person, but ultimately they do not really know until they have substantiation.

So people think I am quiet, or think I am shy, or think I am funny, or think I am a good writer, but they are just thoughts. Once I actually share my writing, they are no longer uninformed or baseless thoughts – they are now substantiated by reality, and that scares me.

What else scares me? Bluntly, what if I am not that good of a writer? It has been a peripheral identity of mine for a long time. Michael is a good writer. I have always thought I was a good writer, but upon what do I tangibly base that belief?

There have been some positive queues scattered throughout my life.

My senior year of high school, we had to draft opening lines to a writing assignment and anonymously pass them around the classroom for everyone to read. I took a creative approach, crafting one line in particular that was intended to be humorous. As the papers were passed around the quiet room, I heard people laugh out loud at the line, providing me with a satisfying vindication of my intention. As we were leaving class, a girl with whom I had little interaction came up to me, unprompted, and told me how creative I was. It was a brief but rewarding exchange that I vividly remember.

As an English major in college, I had to write a lengthy critical analysis in what essentially amounted to a final project before graduating. For the assignment, I juxtaposed critical reviews of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer pre-and-post-Vietnam War. When I received the paper back, the professor informed me it was the best paper she ever read.

Those are the positives, and I try to focus on those confidence boosters. But there are many negatives, all prominently present in my mind, perhaps stronger than the positives.

My sophomore year of high school, I had an English teacher with a Ph.D. At the time, I viewed it as a gauge of my writing ability to have a highly educated individual evaluating my work, but I never got a single A on a writing assignment all year.

While in law school, I wrote an article for law review and I had a professor criticize it in every way possible, telling me she did not understand my premise, it did not advance a legal theory, and my writing style was confusing to read.

So, which is the truth? The girl in high school English class and my English professor in college, or my sophomore high school teacher and law professor? Or maybe even more accurately, it is somewhere in the middle, leaving me as simply average, and no one wants to read an average writer’s work.

But as life has progressed, it has become apparent that there is one person for whom I ultimately need to write: myself. I need to take this chance. I need to feel vulnerable. I need it for cathartics. It is an outlet I need to explore instead of keeping ideas, emotions, and passions to myself. If you keep enough inside, it ultimately fights its way out in some form whether you want it to or not, which is why I am finally taking the initiative to dictate how my emotions are expressed. If I want to write about baseball, comedy, tragedy, or emotions, this outlet will allow me the diversity and freedom to do so. What I have found is that when someone shares personal stories or emotions, it knocks down the barrier and others reciprocate, all essential for personal growth. So these will be my stories, experiences, and emotions, both for myself and for others.