Charming, but single

I slept in a hand-me-down twin bed when I was young. The simple headboard was painted a glossy white and when I was about five or six, my parents bought me a lavender Holly Hobbie bed set, complete with a frilly bed skirt and matching pillow shams. It was gorgeous and matched my light purple walls. (I was quite the spitfire when I was younger, so when asked what my favorite color was, I’d sassily reply, “Lavender,” as if I knew the difference in shades and tones of purple and hadn’t just heard my mom explaining what color I wanted to the paint-mixing man at the Home Depot.) My Little Neighbor Friend also had a Holly Hobby bed set. Hers was the typical pink and it was quite the sight, because her parents had purchased the complete set – including a very stunning Holly Hobbie canopy. Even though it wasn’t lavender, I wanted Little Neighbor Friend’s canopy so badly. To a six year old, a canopy bed is the height of style and fashion. The addition of pink cartoon characters and flowers and ruffles only piqued my interest. A few years later, I had a new bed in mind – a shiny white iron day bed, with a trundle for when my friends spent the night. And my parents took me shopping to pick one out as my birthday present. It was quite lovely – with brass bed knobs on the corners and feminine lines. We never got the trundle, which worked out better in the long run for me since I am a touch of a packrat and used the space beneath the bed for shoes and clothes and hiding things. My mom, seamstress extraordinaire, bought me a bedspread with brightly colored hearts and used the sheet set to make large pillows with big, stuffed flanges that acted as huge cushions and turned my bed into a couch, which I thought was, like, even better than the Holly Hobbie canopy bed. The day bed kept me happy for a few years, until I started growing and I slid down the bed in the night and my feet would hit the other end of the daybed. The last straw was when, at age 16, I had a broken foot and my cast got wedged in between two of the metal bars by my feet. I woke up trapped and had to scream for an hour or so before someone woke up to free me. About a week later, I got my current bed – a full-sized with a hideously ugly brass headboard that was a free hand-me-down from a family member. The first night sleeping in it felt like freedom – it was huge compared to my small twin-sized. I sprawled my body across the whole bed, propped up on a sea of pillows. Sleeping diagonally because I could. The bed was too big for my small bedroom, so it became a soft island in a sea of desk and shelves. When I was in college and slaving away at a home décor store, I replaced the ugly headboard with the black wrought iron one I have today. And now, I don’t sleep in the middle of the bed. I have naturally defined my “side” of the mattress. If I am on my back, facing toward the ceiling, I am on the right side, close in proximity to my nightstand, which holds all of the things I need once I start nesting for the night – cell phone charger, nail file, body lotion, a stack of magazines, a water bottle, my glasses and an unlined sketch book that I always have handy for that novel it seems I’m always working on, about this girl who muddles through and is just waiting, just waiting for it all to happen someday. I’ve become comfortable with the right side. I wake up still in place, snuggled tightly in my comforter each morning, with the next day’s implements placed on the left side. I pack my purse each night before I sleep and stack my portfolio and whatever I was reading the night before next to the purse. Some people have “their side” of the bed because someone else occupies the other half; mine is pure storage. Ideally, something other than my bag, a stack of “Everday with Rachael Ray” and my grocery list would occupy mine. But until then, I sleep with easy gazpacho and swordfish kebobs each night.