The Rebrand

So I was at work the other day and I was telling my boss about how I had a girl friend to my place, her first comment was "what a bachelor pad". I said "It's because there's not a whole lot, right?", her reply was "uh, yeah!".

My boss was quick to say that the way my place looks is part of my "branding". I recall my best friend Darren saying that I should do it to "sell myself". While the notion of "selling myself" sounded fake and sleazy, to phrase it as "branding" to me makes much more sense. I guess my place serves as a reflection of who I am. As a bachelor, I guess I felt I was entitled to keep it minimalistic. If I decorated it, I almost felt as if I was doing it for somebody else, because honestly, I don't mind it being empty.

So I took this notion of branding, and am feel like maybe now is the time to redecorate. It would be nice if my place actually looked like I lived in it. Reflecting about it, perhaps this is part of finding myself again. Before when I thought about decorating, it felt as if it was something I should do, and not something I wanted to do. The emptiness of my place kind of representing where I was at, and perhaps now I'm ready to fill it again.

While the break up with Shelley was so long ago (2+ years), sometimes it still feels like I'm recovering. It's not that I'm hurting from it, more in terms of re-establishing my own identity as an individual, rather than as part of a couple. Maybe I've come to terms with being single, and not waiting for the next relationship to happen. I'm not saying that I've embraced it, but rather accepted it. For a long time, in hindsight, I was pressing things to happen. I would be dating a girl and would want things to move faster, I just wanted a relationship to work out. But that's not how relationships happen, you do have to nurture them, but sometimes they grow, and sometimes they don't. It's just something I have to accept. When people would talk to me about being single, it would make me uncomfortable. Almost as if I was ashamed or had to justify it. Now I kind of feel like it is what it is.

It still sucks, but it is what it is.