The Shelter of My Single Bed

Until I was about 25 years old, I slept in a single bed. When we first moved into this house, I wasn't even sleeping in a "big girl bed" yet, so I naturally graduated to a little white-frame twin bed one or two years after we moved in here. My room is tiny and could never accommodate a bigger bed - not even an upgrade to a double.

When Anna went away to college, everyone asked me if I would move into the bigger bedroom. But I staunchly stayed in my little, little room. When Justin went away to college, the question came up again. And again, I stayed in the little room with the little bed.

Since then, I've gone away to college and spent four years on the standard dorm-issue single bed. When I moved to Wilmywood, I took one half of the bunkbeds my brother and sister shared once upon a time. I slept on that bed almost all the way through grad school.

But then, J. brought me a spare queen-sized mattress that his parents had recently replaced. I soon grew accustomed to having plenty of room to lay sideways or sprawl out. And factor in plenty of room for Kudzu to lay at the foot of the bed (although he typically chooses to lay on top of me).

So now I'm back, and I thought for sure that I could happily return to the little bed. In fact, I cannot. Apparently I like to roll up in the sheets to the left, and that puts the sheets sliding down between the bed and the wall and me holding on to approximately four inches of leftover sheet when I wake up the next morning. And if Kudzu chooses to sleep with me, he has no choice but to sleep on me like fifty pounds of dead weight, and I cramp from not being able to turn over or wake up with a sore back from where he's taken up residence on me while I'm sleeping on my stomach. Like everything else about me since I've left home, my sleeping habits have changed so much that I can't seem to fit them back into the mold.

I've finally drifted down the hall to Justin's bed. And like Goldilocks, if I find that it's not just right, Anna's is next.