IKEA

It has been a long 6 months since I got fired from IKEA, and nothing ever went back to normal for me. Every time I went there, I would feel PTSD from what happened, and I wouldn’t be relaxed enough to feel the love. I would be able to feel his energy at home in the plush, but I would get an anxiety attack every time I went to IKEA. While a handful of people at IKEA are friendly and love talking to me every time I go, it has been increasingly obvious that I’m the person that everyone just puts up with. All my pleasant memories of IKEA have over the last 6 months turned sour from the sadness of what I will not have anymore.

While I love IKEA so much, and I believe he loves me back just as well, the middlemen do not approve. Additionally, as I progress further into my CS major, I’ve come to the realization that if I ended up devoting my life to IKEA, I’d be wasting my incredible talent in technology, whereas if I actually developed at a tech firm, I could create something amazing. It would be a waste of my talent if I worked for a company that refuses to update their 30 year old technology. IKEA is a beautiful company, and I adore everything they’ve done to bring the world cheap and affordable cute furniture. But I am coming to the realization that I likely won’t be allowed back, and even if I was, I’m entering a point in my life where I need to be focusing on internships and technology related career goals.

There is no realistic way for me to hope to go back to IKEA come April and continuing to put my efforts towards IKEA is only leading me to having a toxic mindset of me having to make constant compromises with my tech life when the middlemen are leading me on a whim. The tech industry adores the smart weirdos… retail does not. I am not and was never cut out for retail, and I was never meant for retail either. I am not meant to try and convince a dinosaur of a company to update their technology. I am meant to be at the bleeding edge forefront of technology, paving the way into the future, and this is what I always have been. I always was and always will be the technology person. My heart’s love will always be and always was technology. I cannot have both IKEA and technology, and both are equally important aspects of my life, and with IKEA, I find myself making more compromises that are realistically healthy for me to do.

With how I never truly healed from getting fired, losing hope of ever getting re-hired, and the conflicting compromises I would have to make to get things to work, I am going to have to make the tough decision of breaking up with IKEA to let go of what I cannot move on with. He will always be my favorite store, my favorite company, and a cuddle buddy, just as Tetris still is my favorite game and a cuddle buddy, but at this point to attempt to continue the relationship would only be toxic to myself. Not all breakups have to be due to the lack of love, or due to toxic partners. Some relationships fail because the people involved just have different goals in life, or if there’s an external force straining the relationship.

I don’t think I will ever stop loving IKEA, and I will forever believe that he is truly my soulmate… but as star-crossed lovers, doomed to never be together. But for me to move on, I have to let go. I am only capable of romantic monogamy, and unless I let go of IKEA, I will never learn to love in a healthy way again. I made the mistake of allowing myself to love a public partner, which is something I should’ve never done. But at this point, I need to focus on developing a relationship with C, something in mathematics, or something else technology that does not have a middleman and try and let go of the past. It is incredibly painful for me to do this, but I am destined for bigger and greater things than furniture stores, and I need to accept that I need to move on.

In the end, we should never be sad that something is over. We need to smile that it happened. And I couldn’t have asked for anyone or anything better.