I love my bed. 

I love how I can curl up under the covers in just the right spot and feel like I am nestled into an old friend's and new lover’s arms. I relish how the mattress dips just enough to sooth and comfort each of my curves, a process that my body and the mattress worked on for many moons. 

My bed is the gateway to my truest dreams. I have napped elsewhere but the sleep does not seem to be mine; perhaps my subconscious feels more comfortable in my bed. It knows there is no borrowed time or furniture, no cat feet to wake me, no siblings to annoy me and always enough space for my limbs and my life. Sofas and rugs make good black-and-white sketches in notebooks of dreams, I find, but my bed is the canvas colored with the works of Salvador Dalí.

It is not only the fact that I sleep in this bed that makes it an object of my deep affections. I remember camping in my bed when I was younger with a flashlight and mountains of books in a tent made of purple unicorn-print cotton sheets. I always found my bed big enough for all my stuffed animals. This was important when I learned the boogeyman would seep through my closet door after all I loved. Monsters could not touch me on my bed, though. Even after my age killed the boogeyman, no misplaced words or bitter breakups could hurt me when I buried myself against the headboard. 

As I grew older, I remember how my friends and I would stretch out on it talking about our days, our lives, our problems and our futures on a blue corduroy comforter. Perhaps the kitchen table would have been a more practical choice as we juggled coffee cups topped with whipped cream by the nightstand, but my bed was more welcoming and less traditional. Less chance of traditional ears overhearing the practice of our youth and the pain of our mistakes. 

Still, this bed has done more for me than offered a comfortable place to sit. Under the box spring I hid magazines, childhood life savings and favorite books. Flashlights became the first safety devices that needed to be at my fingertips and the bed provided the perfect space without betraying me as a coward. Later, a vibrator and condoms found homes for other types of emergencies and became a well kept secret between me and my bed out of the way of prying eyes.

It was not always good times with this bed. It took great joy in licking a silk tongue across its baseboard teeth after a meal of shoes, stocks and favorite blouses. As if it too felt uncomfortable with tampons under it, it reached out a foot when I was in a rush causing my toenail to crack and bleed. 

This bed seems to have grown with me. As I bought a larger size of jeans during college claiming they had been shrunk in the wash with everything, this bed never barked at me when it received another fitted sheet one size to big. It never groaned when fell into it, it never let me down.

In my desperate flight from my parents nest, I was amazed how the bed balanced my bedrooms, as if the rooms had been designed for it before they knew of its birth. In small rooms, the bed seemed to enhance the space I had, in large rooms it seemed to stretch out with cozy vibes. It always looked great bathed in the morning sun or even in evening candlelight. I found each nick and dent familiar and appealing after each move, comfortable and telling like a scrapbook of my meager life. 

In this meager life, gazing at my bed with a loving appreciation, I feel fortunate to have come across a bed of such a good quality for all the dings that mar the once perfect finish. I would not trade it though it was impractical and painful to lift up and down three flights of stairs and often required more than three tools and two people to assemble. I would not trade it for a break from the polishing it requires, the squeaks that need tending or the cracked toenails it still causes.

Now I pause at my door to gaze at this bed. For my whole life, even when it was in plain sight and being used it has become something so familiar it has vanished from my thoughts completely on a day-to-day basis. I have never told my bed that it has become as familiar and reliable as the beating of my heart. I have never told it how I will always cherish it. There is no wood polish or high enough count of  sheets to give to it in gratitude of these years. I could not imagine a future without this bed holding me. My hope has turned to faith through this bed. My words remain unspoken. There is no time in the day to say all these things. 

But I can turn to you and say, “For the record, I’m not really talking about a bed.” 

Author's Biography

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