The Television No One Will Watch
On the obsession in making everything perfect — and the freedom of keeping a home open to God instead.
For more than 20 years, I’ve kept a guest room for visiting parents and friends. It’s useful on those occasions — but most of the time it sits empty, except for the dog who’s claimed it as his own.
The extra space is nice, too, especially the closet, where I store my sports equipment and Christmas decorations.
When my parents used to visit, a television in the guest room was almost a requirement. They kept TVs going all over their house, from the moment they woke until they drifted off to sleep.
Since my father moved into memory care and my mother can no longer drive, they don’t visit anymore. My father has never seen my apartment in Delaware, and I don’t think my mother will ever see my house near the shore.
Yet somehow, I still arrange the guest room with them in mind.
The unsightly TV mounts
The previous owner of my house had left TV mounts installed in most of the rooms. I hadn’t had a television in my bedroom in more than four years, but I felt compelled to hang one of mine there just to cover the unsightly mount. Those brackets are next to impossible to pry off the wall, and you can’t exactly drape a picture over one.
The guest room television was another matter. I hesitated, mostly because my friends have no need for one. Yet I kept hearing what my mother would say if there were no TV in her room — or worse, what she’d say if the bare mount were just sitting there: “Oh, that’s attractive.”
So I set out to mount it — only the bracket didn’t fit the television. I had to buy an adapter. The instructions were no help: no words, just pictures that made no sense. I found a way eventually, but the adapter didn’t come with the nuts to hold the bolts. Back to the hardware store to find the right ones. I felt like a surgeon trying to line up every hole so the whole thing would fit together.
And the whole time I wondered: will this television ever even be used? My mother is the only one who might, and she doesn’t know how streaming works.
Wasting our time on vanity
I was pouring out my energy on something that might never come to anything. The whole point had been to hide an ugly piece of hardware — and I realized a simple wall hanging might have done the job just as well.
I felt carried along, pushed by voices that weren’t mine. Voices of judgment, insisting I make everything “perfect,” when I might simply have left things be.
Meanwhile, I’d spent all that time and energy on a television — time and energy I could have given to reading, writing, creating.
This past month, I’ve poured so much of myself into making my house perfect. Getting everything in order. A place for everything.
Now, I know a cluttered home can clutter the mind. That’s part of why I felt so restless all those years in Philadelphia.
But my home doesn’t have to be perfect for anyone else to see. It only has to be open — open and ready for whatever God asks of me, moment to moment.
That means simplifying. Letting things go. And not obsessing over a television in the guest room that may never be turned on.