You can’t always get what you want (part 2)…but if you try sometimes, well, you just might find, you get what you need

If you’re reading this, it’s too late, (At least that’s what Drake said. Don’t ask me how I know that reference; I’m not even a fan. Better yet, ask me, I found his album title because I heard one of the song titles from it happens to be an artist I was obsessed with for at least a decade. Not one of the things I’m most proud of, that’s a whole other theme to be discussed later.( Yes, I have a lot of material to talk about) But back to Drake, or better yet, it’s really not too late! Before continuing, you have to read the 1^st blog post  You can’t always get what you want… Part 1 , or otherwise this won’t make any sense. (yes it’s kind of long, but worth it. I guarantee it =) . Anyone else miss the Men’s Warehouse guy on TV? )

So yes, this is part 2, where were we? Memorial Day weekend 2015; crazy weather weekend in central Texas, tornados, thunderstorms, tragic flooding affecting many; unfortunately, including lives lost in the Wimberley area. Before that weird weekend, let’s trace back a few months. I had started to get disgruntled with the clutter in my apartment, I had been managing or ignoring the mess I have most of the time. I hardly have people over for that reason. Every couple of weeks, on a weekend, I’ll get into a frenzy and clean everything up but during the week I just dump stuff when I get home from work or a workout. I usually come home, make food, read, loiter on the web, call people, shower, watch big bang theory reruns, have prayer/meditation time, whatever it is I’m doing and then go to bed. The last thing on my mind during the week is cleaning. Except the plates, I need to have room in my kitchen sink. (I live in a studio remember?) It’s not ginormous to being with. So the thought of getting a divider with cubbies to store a bit of my clutter and finally get rid of the staples boxes behind my sofa emerged again. It’s annoying walking in and feeling like a twister went through the place; it’s such a bachelor pad.   So a conversation starts in my head again…”ok God, my savings situation is not much different than last year”…not much in the fund in that moment. I peruse around online and still find that something along the lines of what I want starts at $400ish and goes up from there…”ok, it’s just not the right time yet apparently, but what is my gut trying to tell me.”

Flash forward the week before memorial day, not sure how, but I wound up having a conversation with a coworker talking about organization, etc and I think she’s a bit of a scatter bug like me at her home. Or maybe it just bothers her more than it does me but she actually does something about it. That’s more along the lines of it. The gist is she casually mentions “ why don’t you look on craigslist to see if someone’s selling something similar to what you are looking for?” I nodded and smiled but when I usually think of craigslist items for sale I picture this..

I also thought “nothing good ever comes from craigslist” I’ve gotten myself into trouble in the past talking to people I shouldn’t be conversing with in certain sections on that website. Anyhow, I actually have an internet filter on my laptop to where I can’t access certain sites and reports of what I see online go to accountability partners. Craigslist is on those sites, but when there’s a will there’s a way, and I find a way to bypass it and view blocked sites at times…(you guessed it, whole other blog topic, I’ll probably create an entire section for that one..haha)   Turns out, Craigslist is not entirely ominous, just depends on the intent you approach it with.

A few days later, after the conversation with my colleague, its Friday of Memorial Day weekend; I’m cleaning up my place. I’m checking my finances, have the TV on, having dinner, listening to music, multitasking (or wasting too much electricity; depending how you want to look at it) and the craigslist conversation with my coworker comes into my brain that moment. I was  like, ah, what the heck and decided to open craigslist Austin and type in the search bar” IKEA divider”. It was something along those lines; see, unconsciously I had still not let go of that divider from over a year ago…move on already right??? The results pop up; the second one, in south Austin, not super far from where I live, has a picture of the exact Expedit model that was discontinued 14 months ago. (Remember, the one that got away?) It was in mint condition and selling for $120!  One-fifth of the price I had seen it for on eBay over a year earlier. Oh yea, totally not joking. I was like..

“ wtf, what the fudge, …Ricardo, don’t get excited, this an illusion…ok it’s not…it was posted yesterday, it’s probably gone by now. Yea, but why is the ad still up? Omg, I have to contact them right away. How am I gonna transport it? It’s a holiday weekend, where am I going to get a last minute truck rental? Everything will be closed Sunday and Monday. Plus it’s gonna storm. I’m gonna need help, I don’t know that many people that could help or that I’d want to ask. Is God teasing me with this divider again and I’m supposed to not bite this time? I don’t want to be disappointed again. What are the odds the same extinct hard-to-find divider showed up on my radar again? Plus it’s assembled. Oh, Mary Jane from work, her husband has a van that she said I could borrow whenever I needed it long ago.”

(No, that’s not her real name and no she’s not a stoner. But I do like Tom Petty’s song, and maybe the plant too for a long time, but we broke up a while ago; back to the story). So all these thoughts start racing through my head and stressing me out when I didn’t even know if the thing is available. I took a deep breath and said to myself, relax, first thing is first, let’s email the person and go from there. The ad requested that a phone number be left in the email. I did just that and went to bed not expecting an answer right way, it was 11pm at that point and I had to be up at 8am for this new TRX Classpass group workout I wanted to try. ( Have you heard of classpasssssssss???????????? Yea, it’s awesome. Pin that topic 4 later)

The next day I go to my workout, it kicked my butt, met some cool people; actually encountered Spanish speaking folk in the class much to my elation. I hear that language rarely here in Austin in the circles I move around in (hey it’s my “native” language growing up; that I really never learned to speak super fluently but I get by). Point is, my ears perk up when I hear a Mexican accent in my radius. Or when someone can pronounce my name correctly and can roll their rrrrrrrrrrrrrr’s. Its takes talent, don’t feel bad if you can’t. (White folks, you know who you are.) So yea, I get a call around 11am in the morning from this sweet Asian lady telling me she’s selling this IKEA divider because she’s moving to Colorado, that she wanted to sell it as soon as possible. I told her my back-story and she was like “wow, maybe this is meant for you.” I told her I still had to figure out how to transport it and didn’t know if I could do that day or Sunday or Monday. I needed to find someone to help me also. That evening I had a dinner and a concert to go to so I was on a tight schedule. She said she had other people interested and couldn’t hold it for me unless I paid for it. I told her I was willing to do that but just to give me some minutes to make calls and see if I could make magic happen.

I just shot up a little prayer to the universe and things started magically coming into place. My buddy that I was meeting up with in the evening to go to the concert with, happened to be free earlier. I had to pick him up on the other side of town, because he doesn’t have a car; but that was fine. The coworker who I had thought of last night was actually in town that weekend and at home; she texted me back not long after I reached out to her, got the ok from her hubby and told me that I could borrow the van that same day. After picking up my buddy, I picked up the van at my coworker’s home, had lunch (as we waited for the craigslist lady to come back home from an errand), headed down south towards her when she was available, just as a crazy rainstorm started going through town. There you have me in a super tall Scooby doo like van (ok it’s much nicer than Scooby-Doo’s…Its backdoors where 6 ft tall alone, I think it’s a Volvo) driving on the packed highway in the middle of a rainstorm, (the last thing I want to do is crash property that does not belong to me) while my friend’s best attempts at controlling my hidden nerves were leaving the radio on the pronounced screams of Prince’s “Kiss”.

I said to myself, this is going to be just fine. We make it to the ladies house, she has a younger guy there with her; he was Latin, so definitely not her son. She was moving with him to Colorado, is some of the info I managed to absorb while conversing and working..ummm hmmm…hey good for her right? Haha #cougartown So I walk into her house which has boxes and things all over the floor and see the infamous divider. Happy ending right? Not quite yet, it was a bit bigger and heavier than I remembered; my buddy looks at me” we’re not gonna be able to carry that”. Sure enough, that thing was going to be freaking heavy. And let’s not forget, it’s not super sturdy, it’s IKEA-wobbly. Even if we managed to get it in the van somehow, how the heck where we gonna get it up the stairs, turn the corner on my narrow walkway and into my 2^nd story apartment in the middle of the purple rain, purple rain. ………no luckily, the storm called down just as we arrived at the ladies house. I probably would have given up at this point. I have chronic back issues and had a hernia years ago, age has taken a toll. After all that trouble it looks like it was going to be a task that my frail back and my bud ,who’s a built dude, wouldn’t be able to muster.

But the fat lady was not singing that day.  It was no coincidence my buddy “Bert” was there. Precisely he was the one available to help. I’m telling you, the dots all connected. He happens to be a carpenter, a handy guy with tools; so complete opposite of me. And he brought his tool bag with him just in case. He took that thing apart in a matter of minutes with his drill as I scurried back and forth to the van carrying the planks of wood. The Asian lady was on her game also, she gave us plastic bags for the screws, still had the instruction manual, was giving us bubble wrap so nothing would scrape once we hauled the dissembled giant into the van. She went above and beyond to see that I got my purchase and that it left in fantastic state out of her house. Winding down, we drove back to my apt, took all the pieces up. I had to leave my buddy there because he had to make some calls and prep for an activity he had the next day. I drove to drop off the van up north , pick up my car, and floored it all the way back south past my house to go to Academy Sports and pick up some ponchos as it was definitely going to continue raining for the outdoor concert later that night. (Turns out the ponchos came in quite handy)   I get home to take a quick shower and ready myself because we had to get to dinner to meet up with some other friends before the concert and when I walk in the divider was standing behind my sofa, lo and behold. Like my original vision of over a year ago. My buddy and set it up for me. Yea, he’s a good friend. ME on my own, it would have taken me all of the next day, and that’s if, I managed to not break a board or do something to sabotage the project (that’s how it usually goes for me when it comes to manual labor.haha)

Man, I was busy none stop that day; but it was all worth it. (Although the night plans were debunked, halfway through the opening bands the Purity Ring concert wound up getting cancelled due to lightning; it was an outdoor venue, and then x’d again on Monday.. arghhhh..it’s ok, the day was still wonderful).That same weekend I was due for renewal on my lease, I accepted the new 15 month contract; the rain had brought me a new divider to finally organize my place. Felt like I was moving in all over again. It was symbolic for the renewal that’s happening in many other areas of my life as well. Well, the moral of the story for me was, don’t undermine the power of prayer, sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes its no, like in this case: sometimes it’s yes, but not in that moment. Through this past year I learned the value in patience and not being so attached to material things, and being grateful for what I do have. Things truly come when we need them, and sometimes when we are not expecting them. Same goes for a lot of other things in life. When they’re meant to be, truly everything will fall right into place at the right time! Ask and you shall receive.

Update: I’ve done some decorating and bought some storage cubes to put in the divider (work in progress but I’m loving it!)

Appropriately enough, “begin again” by Purity ring

 

bonus exclusive,  a friend trying to teach me some rhythm at IKEA while shopping for divider accessories .. (hey, could have been worse, have u seen the dude dancing to chandelier at IKEA on youtube?)