He creaks. He cracks. He's even a bit wobbly on his feet. But I don't mind. I thrash around. I snore. I even sometimes talk in my sleep - or so I'm told. But he doesn't seem to mind. In fact, he may very well welcome our little interplay.My bed and I are a matched set, like linen sheets on a cool summer night, and we've devised, tweaked and even reworked our routine to a near-perfect rhythm over the last two decades. We've got it down to a science now. But something is threatening our ecosystem. A tall, monstrous figure, in one fell swoop, has the power to put us both on the endangered species list. For good.
My mother.
She may play it coy and act all innocent, but she's been secretly hatching an evil scheme for some time now. You see, I hopped into bed one innocent night only to hear a few springs holler a “boink” beneath me. Well, apparently, that just set my mother off.
“You need a new bed,” she's informed me nearly every single day since the fateful spring incident.
“Nope, I love my bed,” I retorted, to which my mother jumped on her change bandwagon, giving me the same old speech about how I avoid change at every turn and how it's all very unhealthy and how it's the wiser person who can roll with the tide of change.
But the woman is simply missing the point. It's not just about the bed. It's about my life with the bed - a life that, frankly, I still want to cling to a nd hold close. How do you say goodbye to something that has become such a part of you? Is it even possible to truly let go?
MORE JUICE AFTER THE JUMP...
xoxo,
Mel
Everyone has a special relationship with her bed. And those who say they don't or aren't attached to the comfy plush wonderland of dreams? Well, their parents must not have given them the right crib as infants. A bed can say volumes about its owner. Translation: Your bed is an extension of your personality and tastes. Take a gander through any IKEA store and you'll know what I mean. There's the small blue-and-white striped race-car bed you claimed as a kid, when all you wanted to be was the next winner of the Indy 500. There's the oversize waterbed you just had to have as a teenager - its rolly polly bounciness matching your burgeoning, adventurous personality. There's the slim and sleek bed with gray metal frame for those uppity New York City yuppies, whose Manhattan loft is also made of gray metal. And then there's the wide, brass canopy bed, with long drapes that billow in the wind, for the couple who lives out their days on a quiet country farm.
My bed is a beaut, albeit a bit old-fashioned. But then again, it does take after its owner. It's small, wooden, covered with glittery stickers on the headboard from my childhood days. We've been bedmates since I was 10, if not longer, and my body shape is permanently molded into my mattress. Ahh, the mattress. Again, I've had the same one since the Bush Sr. administration, and if that's not what=2 0sleeping on a cloud feels like, then I certainly don't know what does. It's comforting. It envelops me in its arms every single night after a long - and sometimes hard - day. It doesn't judge. It doesn't pester or bark orders. It simply lets me rest and regain my energy.
But more than our comfort in each other's company, my bed and I have been through quite a lot together. It was the bed I came home to after 30 days in the hospital after surgery for a spinal fusion and recovery from a deadly infection that happened afterward. It was the bed I snuggled into after a long vacation, when somehow those fluffy hotel beds just didn't seem to measure up to the one waiting patiently for me in my room. Those hotel beds were snazzy, yes, but that's all they were. All flash and no substance. And my bed was also the bed I laid in - sometimes curled in a fetal position - during my many bouts with the stomach flu. As a child, I lived a rather weakling existence and dehydrated quite easily. So I'd lie under those heavy covers as my mother rubbed a warm cloth on my head and instructed me to take teeny tiny sips of fruit punch Gatorade from a bendy straw. Eventually, I'd drift off to sleep on a soft pillow - the one I've had since the Bush Sr. administration. The bed and the pillow are a matching set of course, and each one compliments the other and contributes to the “Cozy Bed Experience,” as I like to think of it. You simply can't have one without the o ther - and I'm talking about that exact pillow and that exact bed.
See, other people may just think of their bed as a piece of furniture - a fixture in the corner of the room to be used between the hours of 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. The springs, the base boards, the wooden or metal frame - they all serve their purpose. That's where it ends.
But that's not where it ends for me, so maybe that's why I'm so reluctant to say goodbye. I've always viewed my bed as more than a structure. In my mind, it was a person, a metaphorical living and breathing embodiment of my past, present and future. All my memories are tucked between the sheets and hidden under my pillow, and I can grab them out whenever the mood strikes me.
You can't buy those memories at your neighborhood IKEA store. And even if you could, would you really want to put a handy price tag on your memories?
Truth be told, I've come to love those boinks and squeaks and other bed rumblings that come in the night. It's a cozy reminder that, yes, not everything is perfect. Everything has imperfections, but sometimes that's what makes it beautiful. What gives it its much-deserved charm.
So what does my bed say about the person I am? My mother would classify me as an uptight, rigid person unable to accept life's changes. But we all know that's not true. I'm sturdy, consistent and comforting. Just like my bed.
