Some Assembly Required: A Manual for Reclaiming Joy
By Becky Cawley
Nov 15, 2025
Nov 15, 2025
Things you’ll need:
A flat with a balcony. A view of the Suspension Bridge. Walking distance to good coffee and overpriced macarons. And a picture rail, because then you don’t need to buy a drill.
A flat with a balcony. A view of the Suspension Bridge. Walking distance to good coffee and overpriced macarons. And a picture rail, because then you don’t need to buy a drill.
A signed lease, a set of keys, a move-in date.
Enough money, ingenuity, or generous friends to get you back on your feet. Because apart from that decade-old set of Le Creuset, you’re starting from scratch. And doesn’t that feel ridiculous?
A good eye. This is the first place you’re living in on your own, for yourself, since 2014. Do you realise how big a deal that is? Can you even comprehend yet what this means? I’ll tell you: it means choices. Yours. Which cupboard do the plates go in? Is orange too bold a rug colour? Is this a shoes-off space? The answer to all three is: who the hell cares? You get to decide.
Impulsivity. No longer a flaw. You want that Eames spindle-backed sofa being given away on Facebook Marketplace? Go for it. No second-guessing.
Strong arms. Or someone willing to lend you theirs. As well as the Le Creuset, you have books. Hundreds of them, from a time when owning ideas felt as important as absorbing them.
A moving van.
A blow-up mattress, because your bed isn’t arriving until tomorrow. Along with the bulk IKEA order. You’d be fine on the floor, making a nest-fort out of blankets, pillows and towels, but the man whose arms you’ve borrowed might prefer to make love to you on something softer.
A decent 4G connection. The real Wi-Fi is coming next week, but for now, you need just enough to order Deliveroo. You already know what you’re eating on this night, the first night—Japanese from your favourite restaurant, fancy and a little pretentious, but the man already knows that about you. You live in Clifton Village now, darling. Your hard a’s will lengthen, your r’s may roll. This is the most middle-class you’ll ever be. Might as well lean in.
Patience. Because this is the first time you and the man are doing some heavy lifting, not just literally. He’s helping you move. Assisting with the end of one chapter. And isn’t moving house one of the most stressful things you can do? And isn’t this a lot to put on someone you’ve known for two months? You’ll be anxious, sweaty, exhausted. Are you ready for him to see you undone? Is he?
But more importantly—are you ready for what his inclusion means? You’ll never be able to think of this day without thinking of him. The cords straining in his arms as he carries your collection of John Irving hardbacks. The way he watches you—gauging, measuring—as you step across the threshold, as he sees you curate your belongings. The reassuring squeeze of his hand on your shoulder as he drives you away from the house you never wanted to live in, but that still gave you so much.
And maybe he’ll get it. Maybe he’ll understand the tear that slips from the corner of your eye. Or maybe he won’t, and you won’t have the words to explain. Or maybe he will, because despite the short time he’s known you, he does know you. And there’s joy in that too—the quiet kind; it doesn’t ask for anything.
A kick-ass playlist. Your new Sonos speaker. A kitchen to sing in. You’ll unpack. Decide on a home for every little thing—the new cups that are a little on the small side but beautiful with their renderings of clasped hands, the quirky hanging lamps you bought the day you signed the lease. That’s when it became real.
And you sing with the man. And you dance with the man. Because these are things you do, things you do together, things you already do well, like this is how it’s always been. Even though it hasn’t.
And then you picture your son in the flat, because this is his home too. And he loves to dance.
The furniture will arrive in the morning. A new test. Flat-pack assembly: an opportunity to snipe at each other, to see if this soft, fragile thing between you can hold under the weight of a badly translated manual and misplaced allen keys. But for now, it’s sushi on the floor, tequila over ice, and mismatched glasses because that’s your new aesthetic.
And finally—maybe the most important thing when navigating hard-earned, hard-won joy:
Just fucking accept it.
Things won’t always be this good. The furniture won’t always be new. The Deliveroo might be late, or not come at all. But tonight—tonight, the food is perfect; the tequila is cold, and the music is playing.
The furniture arrives in the morning.
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Becky Cawley is a queer writer living in Bristol, juggling a career in finance, co-parenting and finding joy in the everyday. Her work has appeared in Folly Journal, Contrary Magazine and Baby Teeth Journal. She is currently working on a novel about grief, secrets and inheritance.
Instagram: @beckcawl |
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Author’s Note:
If you’d asked me two years ago whether I was an optimist or a pessimist, I’d have said I was neutral. I never felt particularly low, but I also never felt truly happy. This piece is about realising I hadn’t lost happiness; I’d just forgotten how to feel it.
I wrote it on a bus in February. It was probably grey and miserable, like England tends to be at the tail end of winter, but I was happy. I’d just signed a lease on the perfect flat in a dreamy location. The man I’d been seeing for six weeks and was already in love with, had offered to help me move. For the first time in years, I felt like my life was becoming mine again.