Reclaimed Wood— that time my ex almost built me a table
Buy your own table!
In October of 2023 I moved from the 2nd floor to the 6th floor of my building (more on that here). I was chasing natural light, taller ceilings, and hardwood floors. I was also in search of fresh energy after a breakup that felt like a never ending gut punch. The move proved to be successful. I felt at home for the first time in years and steadily gained my confidence and color back. But all along, there was one sore in the middle of my apartment—like a black hole, horcrux, or ghost haunting me from the next room.
It was a mockup table that my ex boyfriend made me back when he was still my boyfriend. He was a furniture designer/maker and he wanted to make me a dining table. Prior to starting the build he made this mockup with cheaper materials to test out if everything was structurally sound. He brought it into my apartment and we looked at it together and I started planning the first meal I would serve on the real one to thank him. I was so happy that day.
Shortly thereafter he got busy with higher priority projects and he tabled the table. I held onto the mockup for what I thought would be one month and became two, three, four…he stayed busy, or sidetracked, or just didn’t give a shit—I don’t know but the point is that the table became less of a priority and then we broke up.
When I moved apartments I thought about how easy it would be to have the movers take it out to the curb. A fresh start, blank slate. No table, new me. But the reality was that I needed a table. So it stayed.
The mockup really isn’t as bad as I made it sound. The wood is unfinished and the top resembles a hard cork material. There are stains on it from where oil or food has spilled and in one corner are some notes and sketches that my ex boyfriend wrote directly on the table. But from a few feet away it looks perfectly normal. I’ve had friends come over and tell me they’d never suspect it isn’t real.
But I know. I know it’s not real. It’s just a mockup.
I tried to keep my tablecloths in a steady laundry rotation so I’d never have to look at the table, the sketches, and his handwriting for too long. So I wouldn’t feel too much resentment when I remembered how he couldn’t keep his word. So I wouldn’t start to spiral wondering what about me wasn’t enough to be a priority. But one day all the tablecloths were in the wash and I sat down to do some work.
I wore a sheer cashmere top and leaned against the edge of the table only to find a thread in my shirt had gotten stuck on a splinter and unraveled. I thought, Ok, mental note, only lean on this—only get close—when you’re wearing something durable and protective. And then I thought to myself, What kind of fucking table do you need a suit of armor for? Which was my way of finally asking myself: What kind of fucking relationship do you need a suit of armor for? Why does getting so close risk some injury?
Almost everyone told me to just get rid of the table. My friends offered to scan Facebook Marketplace for me and make a trip upstate for an antique hunt. My therapist told me: Aisha, any good witch would tell you to get that out of there—which I thought was very funny of her. But it just didn’t make sense to me. I wasn’t sure what I was holding onto but when I thought of throwing it out, something always felt off.
I guess I wanted to ask everyone what difference it would make. I’d throw it out but I’d still be me, and I’d still feel that everlasting gutpunch. The black hole would still be there. When someone has cut into and sanded down your self worth for years it doesn’t rebuild overnight.
Another part of me just didn’t know if I was ready. For a while, I felt guilty about moving on with my life. I cried so hard for so many days wishing I could just get on with it. And then finally one morning I woke up peacefully. Things started falling into place, it was like my life was being pulled along by its own gravitational force but no one had given me the heads up or asked for my sign off.
And then grief would hit me in the middle of the day, like a splinter catching a thread in my shirt, and I’d come undone. I questioned if these moments where I “slipped up” and slipped back into grief or rage were some sign I wasn’t supposed to, or didn’t deserve to, move on.
There is this idea that after something happens to you, you are supposed to sit out on a bench in Siberia and concentrate so hard on healing until you are reborn like a phoenix and can rejoin your life.
But I’ve learned that you can heal from something and it can still be tender to the touch, it can still be a part of you. You move on while working through. Ready is not an on or off switch. There are no neat and tidy chapters—we are all just yellow legal notepads with long rambling notes, edits, scribbles and coffee cup stains.
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Last February, a few months after my move, I had a Galentine’s party in which I invited 40 girls over to celebrate. A few nights before, while preparing my apartment, I removed the table cloth and saw the edge of the table where he’d written his name in black sharpie and…I don’t know, it just all felt very far away.
So for the first time, I looked closely at the sketches on the table where he had held a pencil and dragged it along jotting down notes to himself. Where he had left his mark. I noticed then that the notes were a diagram of the table itself, I think he was working something out to make the legs more stable. Like he really intended to make something real.
The day of my Galentine’s Party I took twenty sharpies out and asked all my friends to have at it. They signed their names, wrote their favorite quotes, left notes and drawings.
From then on, when I removed the table cloth I saw all the messages from my friends. It no longer represented the disappointment that metastasized in my life. I stopped looking away.
Eventually, I stopped feeling so resentful about the table. I started to understand that this mockup was the most he could give me. I was never getting that dining table. Never getting something that was solid, dependable, something that could stand the test of time, could hold weight. That I could show my friends and feel proud of. Something real. Our whole relationship—I think he could only give me the mockup. But if I were forced to bet on it, I think he probably wanted to work on a real one.
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Last month, my mom and I walked into my favorite vintage furniture store, Good Behavior, to check out a mid-century modern dresser I’d seen on the vintage dealer’s Instagram. While walking out of the shop my mom and I stopped by a beautiful table. I noticed the deep cracks where the pieces of the tabletop had split after years and years. I ran my finger along the knicks and scratches on the edges that had dulled over time. When I got home, I looked at the table again on the website. It’s a 19th century tavern table—and I’m still not sure if that’s the name of the style or if it was in a tavern in the 1800’s. But I like to imagine that a bunch of people slammed their pints of beers into it, danced on it, fought and made up over it, until maybe it ended up in someone’s kitchen, or sat in a garage before it made its way to Brooklyn.
There was something that appealed to me about having an old ass table that had passed through many hands; that was weathered but still solid and strong. Like maybe that’s the kind of relationship I’d like to have one day. Or maybe that’s how I can reframe my image of myself. Someone with knicks and scratches that are all just a part of her patina. I bought the table and on the last day of 2024 I painted over the top of the mockup table and sent it back to my ex-boyfriend.
For what it’s worth, I know his table would’ve been beautiful. He was very talented, meticulous, and he valued doing things right. When he cared, he cared. I used to think, He will get it together and make a beautiful table for someone else one day…and I hope I never see a photo, I hope no one ever tells me, I hope I never have to fucking hear about it. I hope I never have to know for certain. But I’ve stopped feeling so strongly about the second part. It's clear to me now that it was just never going to be me. Sometimes it’s just not your table.
"When someone has cut into and sanded down your self worth for years it doesn’t rebuild overnight." - as someone with an ex who was building her furniture this resonated with me sooo much. I adored this piece, bravo!
legit were u dating aidan from satc. and also I’m obsessed w the new table