The Bed

I'm getting a new bed tomorrow.

This shouldn't be notable. People get new beds all the time. But this bed, save for the dorm bed and the rented bed I have in Gainesville (neither count), is the bed I have slept in since I left the cradle. A twin sized bed, in the same bedroom in the same house in which I have lived since I was three months old. This bed has definitely seen its time. It is twenty-years old, and no longer particularly comfortable. I don't sleep well, in this bed. It is small, and the mattress is worn out, and the sheets never softened with age.

The twin sized bed (and its partner, which is also in my room--for some reason I have two twin sized beds in my room, which was convenient for the sleep-over years) is being replaced by a queen sized bed. This is the first step in my mother's plan to turn my room into the new guest room. The turquoise-purple-and-black wallpaper will be striped. My posters will be rolled and stored. The "Beautiful People" collage I made when I was sixteen, which surrounds the mirror on my closet door, will be torn away--farewell Alan Cumming, Christian Bale, John Cameron Mitchell, and Kate Winslet. We'll give my desk and the giant purple table that served as a night stand to Goodwill. My doll cabinet will be moved into the "Doll Room/Office"--the new title for the old guest room. The antique dresser that my mother painted white and spackled purple when I was five will be moved to my sister's apartment in Gainesville.

The queen-sized mattress will sit in a wrought iron frame, covered in bedding that has yet to be chosen. The color scheme will probably be lilac and pale violet, as the carpet is a pale violet and we do not want to deviate too far from the overall concept of the house. The room will be comfortable, well-decorated. It will be mine, but not mine.

This bed has served me well over the years. I remember being four and piling both sides of the beds with dolls, animals, and two carefully balanced pillows. The bedspread was white, then, with a pale lilac design. One afternoon, after having just seen Captain Eo, I lay awake and pictured that asteroid--the one at the beginning, remember?--flying toward me. I pretended I was part of the crew. This was back when the only reason I would go to EPCOT was to see Captain Eo. Now I have to watch grainy videos on youtube.

When I was six I saw Beauty and the Beast and was so upset that I had to sleep with the lights on. I stopped sleeping with the lights on when I was three. I got over my fear of Beauty and the Beast after our third screening. I think we saw it seven times in theatres. I think my parents stopped reading to me when I was six as well--but by then I already had my nose buried in a book, and though the "recreations of Lindsay's day" my father would concoct still amused me, they did not hold the sway of the preschool days.

In the third grade I found a book on horror movie makeup tricks in the library. Upon seeing a close-up of Linda Blair in full-out Exorcist make-up I shrieked, dropped the book, and ran. One of my classmates deduced my fear and chased me around the library with the book turned to said page. That night I did not sleep in my bed--I slept in my parent's room, with images of scarred and demonized Linda Blair haunting my dreams. I still cannot bring myself to watch The Exorcist.

I woke up the morning after my Bat Mitzvah to the murmurings of relatives already assembled for brunch. I rolled out of bed and noted that my hair--which was giving me hell at the time, and about which I still have adolescent insecurities--had held together rather well during the night. I drew on a t-shirt and a pair of jean shorts (because every Florida kid wore those) and stumbled out to brunch.

The beginning of my sophomore year in high school was the apex of my pseudo-goth phase. I wrote terrible poetry, wore dark eyeliner and Doc Martins, and listened exclusively to Nine Inch Nails and the Smashing Pumpkins. One night I turned the lights out, put Dusk from Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness onto my stereo, and listened to "Thru the Eyes of Ruby" at full volume at least ten times in a row. I lay in bed with my eyes open, particularly relishing the crescendo at the beginning of the second verse.

Senior year, just before and after graduation, I'd have friends piled in this room--some on this bed, some on its partner. The beds are decorated with many pillows. We'd curl around the pillows, and talk, probably about sex--which none of us had experienced--and I'd only turn on one lamp and the light would be yellow and fantastic.

I did not lose my virginity in this bed. I have had sex in this bed. And on its partner.

And now I'm curled up in the bed that is too small for me. Flash, one of my four cats, is being a nuisance. "Lap-top bed" is one of my favorite things--thank goodness for the lap-top, I can reminisce and be comfortable. The queen-sized mattress arrives tomorrow, the frame arrives this weekend. And then slowly, piece by piece, my room will disappear into boxes, and be packed away until God knows when...

I'll miss this bed.