At the Center of It All

It was heavier than I would have liked; it’s stain was nicked; but it was mercifully level. Hector and I had just moved into our freshman dorm and visited a secondhand store to finish furnishing our room. I was lugging a coffee table up four flights of stairs in a building with no elevator. I dropped it on the rug in the middle of the room, exhausted. We both sat on the futon and put our feet up. “What a great purchase, man.” Hector said through a smile.

“Yeah, and it was only $10.” I, ever the spendthrift, said back.

A few days later, classes had yet to get too challenging, and the coffee table was holding a game console. We had befriended the guys across the hall and were getting to know each other over video games. Jake, from across the hall, looked down at the table. “This is perfect for the room guys.”

“Do you think it will hold some pizza?” I countered.

“Let’s find out, especially if you are paying.”

A few weeks later, the table held huge Western Civilization books and notebooks. The mood was tense as we studied for our first college exam. The table now had become part of the room. It wasn’t just a $10 table anymore but was at the center of everything we did. Between classes, it held our feet and video games. It often gave us a place to eat lunch or supper. And it was the main place of study. Living in a house now and not a dorm, it seems like it would have been a stumbling block and the wrong height for about anything, but that table really kept everything together for us.

Hector met a girl and started dating her. She frequently brought friends to our room, and our dorm became a hub for many different types of people. Good conversations and studies happened all around that coffee table freshman year.

Eventually, freshman year melted away, and the coffee table went home with me for the summer, but Hector and I would be in the sophomore dorm the next year together with the coffee table again.

However, sophomore year was busier than freshman year. People change with their circumstances, and sophomore year was more serious and less joyous. The coffee table was used less, and a card table took over for the room’s centerpiece. Even more frustrating, sophomore year went even faster than freshman year, and everyone experienced changes in their lives.

Hector and his girlfriend broke up. I worked more and drifted away from friends, and Hector eventually transferred. Those days were more than a decade ago, but I have not been able to throw away that used, nicked table. There is little use for it in my house now, and it seems even heavier than it did back then. But when I look at it, the flat surface is filled with memories. I can still picture empty pizza boxes, shoeless feet resting, and textbooks covering the top of that oval table.

What I actually learned in college has little application in my job. College is an intense time of immersion into the lives of quite a few people around us. The classes and campus slip our mind sooner than the great relationships formed. College students are usually quite poor, and a $10 table is sometimes the best thing to finish off a tiny room filled with two people and their friends. Instead of focusing on nice furniture, square footage of our friends’ houses, and who has the better job; college students focus on getting to know each other and working collectively to get through the days and weeks of studying. More importantly, memories are made and a little oval table can trigger them when you need them most.