Some may say their world began when they first born, when their eyes opened for the first time and they started discovering the brand new sounds and smells. Others may argue that their life truly began at an important time in their life, like the start of high school, when they began becoming independent from their parents and surrounding themselves with new people. In my case, my world began at my living room coffee table, where I truly began to learn many life lessons, make memories and develop my morals.
My living room coffee table was nothing out of the ordinary. Sturdy, for the most part, and trustworthy, it served its purpose. It was about knee height and just over a yard in length. Simple, a solid medium brown with a repeating square pattern on the top. The top was also a mess of scribbles and dents, from markers slipping off the page, or homemade crafts gone wrong. It had ridges, from where I found my father’s jackknife and decided to carve my name. It had four legs, one of which was broken, sometimes causing the whole table to collapse, spilling papers and drinks. It’s one of my earliest memories, as my parents owned it before I was born. It was always there, placed in the centre of our living room, until it was given away two years ago to my mom’s sister. It helped support me when I walked my first steps, right there beside me as I placed one foot in front of the other, reaching to catch myself if I fell. One problem I always encountered was that I often stubbed my toes. I was a wild child, rowdy and hyper. I enjoyed running circles around the house, often bashing my toes of one of the table legs. My mother would quickly come running, holding me until I stopped crying, bandaged it up and tell me I was going to be alright. This taught me how to be strong, and ignore the pain and always carry forward. It also taught me patience, to slow down and not go through life so fast. To this day, I still don’t know how many toes I’ve broken. My living room coffee table also brings back many family memories. On winter nights, when my family wasn’t at the local hockey rink, we would spend the evening sitting around the coffee table. My dad would cook nachos with cheese in the oven, a treat, and we would watch whichever NHL game was on that night. My family’s always been hockey crazy, and that’s what my life has formed around. As we would sit there, surrounding the coffee table, my dad would point out plays and show me different techniques, often pulling out a pen and a pad of paper, describing a certain move in more detail. It was there, at my coffee table, that my love for hockey and my team truly developed.