Existential angst in the Ikea queue. We have all been there.

A trip to Ikea brought up a lot more for me than I expected when a late night shop had me facing my mortality and lamenting the time passed. Maybe I should have passed on the meatballs?

Swedish meatballs. The mere mention of this Scandinavian delight was enough to persuade my husband to join me on a trip to Ikea on Monday evening. The kids have been away this week, and we have been enjoying some ‘after hours’ activities. We walked around the local park until nearly dusk on Sunday and on Monday we threw caution to the wind with a late night (after 6pm) trip to Ikea. Still got it.

Ikea. A real walk (well convoluted schlep) down memory lane for us. My husband and I met in our early twenties and were together for eight years before we had children. For a lot of that time, we practically lived on the doorstep of Ikea. Many an evening we would treat ourselves to some cut price meatballs, kitchen utensils we didn’t know we needed, a packet of napkins and another 50p candle. Good times.

We moved further away when the children arrived, but the good times continued. Our toddlers loved a trip to Ikea to bounce on oddly named beds and play ‘hide and seek’ amongst the ‘variation on a theme’ of ‘Pax’ wardrobes. We bought their first ‘school desks’ there and upgraded their brightly coloured ‘Stuvva’ bedroom furniture to the more streamlined ‘Malm’ range as they got older. But as we became more unpacked than flat packed, we stopped going. Times were changing again though and our old haunt was calling us.

Our university aged daughter needed more storage space and, unsure as to how long she intends on staying with us post university (a long time we hope), I thought yet another ‘Malm’ chest of drawers would be perfect. So, we set off to mecca of flat pack living.

‘We used to do this all the time,’ my husband commented as we drove the now one-hour journey to our nearest store.

‘Finish work, nipping off to Ikea….But I just don’t have the energy anymore’, he added wearily.

And he did look tired. Drained at the start of the week. Not a good sign. I felt a twinge of sadness and tug of anxiety. My husband is fit as flea. Not just for his age, but in general. He eats well, keeps a strict sleep routine, works out twice a week, naturally fit. He recently had to hold back during a ‘team building’ mini marathon so as not to speed past his boss. He wasn’t even trying. He is half Scandinavian (which probably explains why we used to spend so much time in Ikea). Good genes. Scandinavians live forever. If he feels tired, us other mere mortals have no chance.

We arrived at Ikea and headed straight for the café. Us and a cast of thousands. The queue was so long barriers had been erected like those that file weary travelers queuing for passport control. The queue snaked back on itself many times over as we all stood patiently, shuffling slowly forward as the next plate of ‘kottbullar’ was dished up.

I was separated from a tall, athletic looking young man who stood opposite me. Well built, 6ft 3 at least. Had an air of ‘footballer’ about him, a thin hairband sweeping his black tousled hair off his face. Early twenties, supermarket uniform. Presumably just finished a shift at the adjacent supermarket and rewarding himself with a piece of ‘Daim’ cake. He appeared to lunge forwarded towards it. Could anyone be that desperate for a sugary Scandi treat? But he wasn’t lunging. He was fainting. His legs gave way. He was out cold.

As a trained medical professional, I did what any trained medical professional would do. I looked around to see if there was anyone better qualified to help. There wasn’t. So, I swiftly ducked under the barrier and did the needful. Situation assessed, help called for, patient stabilised, job done. But as the Ikea first aid responder moved the patient to place of safety and treatment (a chair and a sugary drink) I was left on the wrong side of the barrier with my husband over the other side. I was stuck. I was too scared to duck back.

I have been suffering with lower back nerve pain for months. Quite debilitated by it. The worst it has ever been. Post 50 my back has been the bane of my life. A sign of aging that I have not been keen to embrace. But the coursing adrenaline had spurred me to sweep adeptly under the barrier to tend to my collapsed patient. I’m medically trained. It’s what we do. But the adrenaline was ebbing away. And I am stuck rooted to the spot, feeling helpless, no longer helpful. I can’t bend. I must take the long way around back to my husband. The crowd are applauding me, but I feel overwhelmingly sad.

My body is aging. My ‘fit as a flea’ husband’s body is aging. We are no longer the two bright young things with the fifty years plus ahead of us. Aged fifty-one and fifty-two we have lived more than fifty years already. So much time has gone, and did we really appreciate it? Decades have passed since two young lovers skipped through the hallowed halls of brightly coloured cushions and ‘Poang’ chairs, dizzy with excitement for the life that lay ahead. But now. In that moment. Stuck there. Desperate to turn back time, I realise my mind has never really caught up with body. I am fifty-one not twenty-one. Where did the time go?

As we left the café and continued along the long and laborious maze of oddly named furniture (interesting fact: my Swedish speaking husband says the names are entirely made up), I became even more nostalgic, and angst ridden. Each carefully curated section charting the journey of our lives past. The cheap and quite uncomfortable ‘Klippen’ sofa we bought for our first rented flat. The industrial like metal bed framed bed that was so easily dismantled as we moved from rental to rental and then eventually to our first (mortgaged to the hilt) home. We slept the first night with our newborn daughter in that bed.

The tiny toddler bed that we moved our first daughter into when the second was born. The sturdy ‘Kallax’ and ‘Trokfast’ storage units that our children filled with endless cuddly toys, baby dolls, board games and Barbies. The ‘Billy’ bookcases that once housed my midwifery text books, my husband’s work, our precious bedtime books, the well-read Harry Potter series, annotated GCSE revise guides and now my daughter’s university dissertation notes.

I felt the sadness in my soul. Now lost in the warehouse section looking for aisle 28, row 16. A metaphor for our lives. Where to now? I felt a peculiar kind of grief that so much of the past 30 years have not turned out the way I thought they would be. I noticed Ikea now have a return scheme where you can bring back some of your old Ikea furniture and start again. Part of me would like to do that with my life (wouldn’t we all?).

We emerged the best part of £200 lighter and my soul feeling ten times heavier. We drove home, into the sunset of the A40 and Neasden high road. My husband gently squeezed my leg.

‘Should be able to fit in a couple of episodes of ‘Schitt’s Creek’ before bedtime’, he smiled (it’s our new find on Netflix, we are so ashamedly late to the Schitt’s Creek party).

‘Oh yes and I am so ready for a cup of tea now’, I replied. ‘And we have to get the drawers set up in the morning, the girls will be back tomorrow’.

‘I’m too tired to bring the stuff in tonight, I’ll do it in the morning’, yawned my weary husband.

Key in the door. Kettle on. My soul lifting. So this is where the time went. Building this. Against some very big and painful odds. We did it. Our homely home. Our amazing children. Our stable family. Our hard fought for marriage. Our wonderful, simple and imperfect life. The life I never dreamed I could have as I fought back-to-back mental health battles. More complicated than any flat pack, far less instructions provided, and far more back breaking effort needed. But we did it. We built it. And we will build more. And we will have many more adventures to come.

One day we may exchange of ‘Poang’ chairs for electric recliner armchairs and our eyes may become too blurry to read the books on our ‘Billy’ bookcases but today is not that day. And tomorrow we have a chest of drawers to build, our daughters to welcome back, a holiday to pack for and more memories to make. ‘The wonderful every day’ to coin an Ikea phrase, I intend to make the most of every minute of it. I hope you will consider joining me too.

If you have enjoyed reading please like, comment, restack or if you can, buy me a coffee. Every little helps. I am having my holiday break so will not be posting for two weeks but I have plenty of exciting posts planned for when I return. Look forward to catching up then. Rebecca x