New Beds in Here Be Dust

This is the mattress I had slept on for the past 11 years.

Despite its age, it was comfortable. It was familiar. M had slept on a mattress that was newer, but not by much.

She seems to sleep better on the new bed that arrived on Tuesday, but it's still too early to really tell.

I sleep fine on mine; it's just that the sleep is weird. It's different. Memory foam rather than coils. The new beds are considerably higher than the old ones had been. It feels a bit like climbing into a space capsule -- as my child's imagination envisions a space capsule.

My bed cost less than half of what M's cost, but comfort is comfort. M wanted the old beds out of the house; I agreed that it was time. For one thing, the cats had ripped whatever box spring fabric time hadn't already gotten to, which created a constant shedding of whatever had passed for insulation around the time I was born.

When M saw this, she wanted to dismantle it and keep the wood. That didn't happen. It was enough that we had managed to clear a path through her clutter in time -- barely -- for the new beds to come in. That clutter was one reason we'd kept the old beds for so long.

Less than a half-hour before delivery, she was still dismantling her "faux-poster," which she didn't want me to touch:

She had erected it years ago, to block out light and airflow. These past few days and nights she's slept on the new mattress without the faux-poster, but with two lamps on in the bedroom ("to generate heat"). I turn the lights out when I go to bed. She talks about erecting the faux-poster again.

As with everything else, I take it all one minute at a time.

The delivery guys took away the old beds, but we have both the old and new bed frames. My bed lies on an old frame, which I expanded to accommodate the new bed's greater width. M's bed lies on a new frame because a broken wingnut on her old frame had made it unadjustable. The new frame doesn't adjust at all, but it fits her bed.

I like that my old frame is flexible. And they don't make wheels like this any more:

I had grown up with the old beds; despite their condition I felt a little sad watching them go. It's an odd sentimentality. Our bedroom had been my parents' bedroom. My mattress had known three sleepers across two generations.

Deciding on the new beds had taken two visits to the store and hours for each visit. I had made my decision quickly, choosing a lower price and making sure I was comfortable. Then I waited for M, who took notes after sitting on the floor and dumping the contents of her fanny pack onto the rug as she searched for pen and paper. Fortunately, the store was near-empty at the time; they'd been much busier earlier in the day.

The salesman was very patient. Turns out he used to be a special needs teacher, working with autistic kids.

Delivery had been delayed twice because my bed had to come from a different manufacturing plant. I did what preparations I could do ahead of time, but so much of M's stuff needed to be moved that I was up all night prior to delivery.

She would let me do only so much (mainly hauling heavy objects); if I tried to force the issue she claimed that we were fighting and got agitated and overwhelmed, dragging me away from her piles. (This was after I'd gotten the call saying the beds were on their way and would arrive within a half-hour. She had been sleeping when the call came in.) I was able to do some stealth-moving when she wasn't looking, which helped.

Knowing that I couldn't sleep and blocked from speeding up preparations, I devoted part of the long night to doing an editing job for a new client. It was a good distraction for me and the client is happy, so win-win.

Parts of the house have been vacuumed for the first time in, oh, a decade or so. What with all the path-clearing, the place looks like a somewhat different mess than the mess to which I have reluctantly become habituated.

The new bed is a tabula rasa for my body, which after weight loss is its own kind of tabula rasa. The old bed and I knew each other's bones. For all its comfort, the new bed is a stranger. Fresh out of its plastic bags, it knows nothing of history.