My husband and I have been sharing a bed for twenty years, give or take a month or two. TWENTY YEARS, PEOPLE. That’s a long time to do anything. For all of those twenty years we have been sleeping on a futon pad on the futon platform left over from my husband’s freewheeling bachelor days. And, yes, that makes me a 47 year old grown a$$ woman who still sleeps on her husband’s bachelor bed. Sigh.
But middle age is catching up with the both of us. That futon platform lies low to the floor, my friends, and that futon pad is getting thinner by the day. Add my bum knee, and that’s a long way up from a sleeping position. I have heard about the concept of “under the bed,” but that is not something I have experienced as an adult. Our under the bed is approximately three inches of space — just enough for the dust bunnies, but only if they’re thin.
But there comes a time to grow the hell up, at least while sleeping, so we recently decided to invest in a new mattress. A real mattress. One that doesn’t cause pain to our lower backs. One that doesn’t have peaks and valleys visible even when the bed is made. One that will double the width of our current twelve year old futon pad. One that doesn’t result in me wincing every time I roll over. Yes, it is time.
I am thrilled. It was supposed to be delivered last Friday. We went 21st century and ordered one of those mattresses that comes vacuum packed in a box. Alas, for unknown reasons, it never arrived and that little tracker thingy tells us today is the day.
TODAY IS THE DAY!
I celebrated this momentous occasion by going out yesterday to buy new sheets. I realized that a brand new mattress that magically pops up out of a box is deserving of some new sheets. I also realized that true grown ups probably have more than two sets of sheets.
Sheet shopping was its own kind of ordeal. I know that some super cool person who sits in some super fancy office building is who decides on the color palettes that Americans can choose from (yep, I watched The Devil Wears Prada), but damn, I think that super cool person in their super fancy office is clinically depressed this season.
The current sheet options range from Mustard Malaise to Seafoam Suicidal Ideation to Gloomy Grey. Dreary and glum, all of them. I finally found some kind of vintage-y, sort of cheerful prints at the fourth store I went to. The fourth store. Damn, you know you’re middle aged when a big day out is sheet shopping and you have the mental fortitude to go to four stores until you find a mostly suitable option that doesn’t cost more than the LuLaRoe outfit you’ve been eyeing for the past three months.
I am fairly convinced that the first morning I wake up on those new sheets on my new mattress my life will be transformed. Transformed. It is going to be the very first day of the rest of my life, folks! There is only room for amazing here. The birds will be singing, the sun will be shining, my little ones will have made their own breakfast. I can see it now . . .
That fact that all this full on restful joy will be happening on that same old futon platform from 1994 is a detail for another day.
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If you want to read about another grown a$$ woman with a futon, click HERE!
Mary Tyler Mom 