Mary + Her Mental Health

Last night, I got a new used bed. I’m really not sure if I can fully articulate the profound impact that sentence means to me, to my back, my sagging eyes, my knotted neck, my lethargy level, my work-product, my love life, my fertility, my sun sign, and basically the entire universe itself.

The History of Mary’s Sleeping Surfaces November 2003 – September 19, 2005

Just a Mattress

When I first moved back east, Dad insisted I get a brand new mattress. I appreciated his disdain for buying a used mattress, it being kind of hygienically brow-raising and all. Unfortunately, I followed the advice of dear old dad and purchased JUST the mattress, which is all I was able to afford at the time. I thought, after a few paychecks, I can invest in a box spring and frame, and all will be well. Of course, that never happened.

For the next year, I slept on a twin mattress on the floor. My favorite nights were in January/February, when God sends his annual rebuke on New England and we’ve got the wind chill factor to prove it. Scientific fact: heat rises. Consequence: mattress on the floor transforms into a flat paneled iceberg by 3 a.m. Lilypad in the Spring, Block of Ice in the Winter.

As time went by, without the support of a box spring, my little mattress became more and more uncomfortable until finally, when my former roommate was moving back to Utah, I ditched the twin iceberg/lilypad for my next sleeping surface…

The Futon Heaven Forgot

Former roommate left her futon for me, and I believed with all my wholesome heart that this would be a huge improvement in sleeping surfaces. She actually had two large futon mattresses, which I could stack on top of each other. Moreover, I was very much looking forward to not being on the ground anymore, and having the sturdy support of an actual FRAME so as to prevent the aforementioned mattresses from losing their shape and wreaking gross negligence on my lower back.

How thrilled was I when I set her up. This big, beautiful futon. Alas…

I don’t know if there has ever been a time before or since when I have done such deliberate and regimented physical harm to myself than sleeping on that damn futon night after night for nine stinkin’ months. The futon made me say damn.

Rock bottom was when I started punching the futon and letting out silent screams around 4 in the morning one night. I took to sleeping on the couch occasionally when I was desperate. I remember thinking how the futon heaven forgot was preparing me for the future sleep deprivation brought about by child rearing. See, I was desperate to find the silver lining here. Just call me Pollyanna. Even Pollyanna would cuss like a sailor if she ever slept on that damn futon. Well, this is assuming that Dr. Chilton was able to restore feeling back in her legs after her terrifying fall from the top floor of Aunt Polly’s mansion, after winning her prized doll at the big bazaare. If she stayed a cripple I suppose it wouldn’t matter that much one way or the other. But I digress…

You know me, I’m just not a complainer. (to quote Cicada: BWAH HAHAHAH!!!)

So it came as a great shock to me, when yesterday morning, after my roommate Peggy found me again sleeping on the couch, that Peggy pretty much made it her personal mission to get me a new bed. It wasn’t because I constantly complain about this, or anything like that. She’s just a really nice girl, that Peggy.

I had contacted a girl in my ward about a month ago after she posted an ad about her twin mattress set she was selling. I told her I’d give her $40 for it. She agreed. And then it sat in her basement for four weeks while I made half-hearted attempts to find a truck to borrow.

So last night, burning with this new mission in her bosom, Captain Peggy contacts this girl, and while I’m busy running errands and fulfilling other obligations, she picks up the bed, straps it to the top of her ’97 Corolla, and delivers it back to our apartment, all by her one-sey. Just to shut me up. Now that's friendship, campers.

I come home from my errands to find a frame, a box spring, and a beautiful twin mattress sitting in my living room. I burst into tears, and with breathy tones I kept uttering softly: “it’s so beautiful…it’s soooo beeauuuuutifuullll!”

Last Night

Heaven. Pure. Bliss.