If there was something I couldn't live without, it would be my family's blue chair. There's nothing special about it by any means. It's just a plain, dull, blue rocking recliner. The fabric is worn, and the cushions aren’t as soft as they used to be. I could always get a new chair, as there are millions of chairs that are infinitely more comfortable. But this one is the one that I want to keep forever. I want it in my house when I move out. I want my family to enjoy it in the future. But why? That chair is older than me, and I’m pretty sure it’s older than my parents' marriage. 

They bought the chair for their first house before they got married. When they got it, it was much softer and the fabric was a bright light blue, like the sky. Then they got married and moved into the house my three older sisters would live in. It lived in that house for four years. I look at the photos from time to time. Sometimes it's hard to believe that chair had any sort of bright color to it. Seems almost impossible. But there it was, bright and blue, in that small Michigan house. Then when my family moved across the country to Texas, the chair went with them. 

Then I was born. There are so many photos of me and my dad, or me and my mom, or me and my sisters on that chair in our house in Texas. The chair, at this point, had moved houses twice — one move being significantly harder than the other. The color was more dull, but it was still there. The wooden lever had faded a bit because of how often my dad had reclined it. My mom told me that the footrest mechanism squeaked for a few weeks because of how often my dad was using it. It doesn’t do that anymore. The wooden supports had started to fade too, losing their shine a bit. One proper cleaning and it would look brand new, but my parents never cleaned it. Instead, they had us living in that house for five years, me and my little sister were born, my older sisters went to school, the two eldest found their passion in cheer, and the third eldest in soccer. 

Then we moved to Wisconsin. And the chair came with us. I’ve spent nearly 11 years in Wisconsin, and over that time the chair has faded in color, the wood has lost its polish, and the mechanisms don’t work as smoothly as they used to. But we keep it. All our other couches and chairs have been sold or retired to other locations. But this chair stayed. It moved with us, from Michigan to Texas and now Wisconsin. It looks old. It smells old. But that chair is more valuable than all our other furniture combined. Because it holds the full story of our entire family up to this point.