A Silly Story About A Bed

Between the craziness of the city, and our lives, there is this place we call home. A small apartment, where the chill from the floor hits you right in-between your big toe and your second toe no matter what the season. (It’s a thing to look forward to during the summer for sure.) With stark white walls and splashes of yellow here and there- maybe too much for some and just perfect for us, there’s this room. The calm room without a doubt, and in that room, there’s our bed; a home within our home. Our bed, with all of its full size glory, it has been a constant. It often reminds me of a deeply rooted tree, sometimes swaying with grace, right along with us as each life phase passes us on by.

Sunday, when I thought about our bed, and if it could talk and all the secrets and stories it would tell, my heart kind of swelled a little. It’s heard some of our deepest secrets, it’s been the cloth for unexpected tears and heartache, and the place where we’ve grown and loved. It’s the bed I very nervously brought River home to. The bed Peter and I shared so many cuddles, and ridiculous bickering as well. When it was just the three of us, and when we became four, it was the place we fell in love with one another again and again. It was my sturdy crutch as I laid bent over moaning with the aches of labor, desperately tired, yet stronger than I ever knew I could be. That same bed that holds our late Sunday naps; where I lay exposed, vulnerable, joyful, nursing my baby and listening to my husband and daughter giggle from the front room.

It’s silly because it’s just a bed after all, but it’s ours, and does so much with so little. Creating a safety net for my babies and I day after day. To think of it, it’s the same bed I put together with my friend years ago-before all the babies and marriage to Peter. Right around the corner from our home now. I had put it together with my friend, we were barely out of our teens, and she had so graciously offered to help me move into my second apartment. It was the first thing that went up, and I didn’t unpack much after. A few months later, Peter and I took the bed apart as River was growing in my belly. I’m sure it’s time we retire it, purchase a bigger bed for our bigger family, but something about that bed, what started it all and how it stuck through all of these milestones, we’ve got a deep love going on.

So there it sits, another Sunday hosting naps, cuddles… and even more naps. Located right in the back room, a few feet away from where I first brought it home as a young adult, with no idea of how far it and our lives would come.