Bedtime Stories.

I have broken my bed.

Right now those of you who bet the odds are questioning why it took so long to get to this point. If you have been a fierce advocate of my inner cougar, you’re secretly hoping for vindication. My mother is pretending she is uninterested in whether her only daughter will find happily ever after again, and you’re all waiting to hear what 50 shades of misadventure led to this little turn of events because, if there is anything we’ve all learned by now is that my life is nothing if not entertaining.

For you. Not necessarily for me.

Just so we’re all caught up, the lip has healed nicely. The doctor-prescribed vibrator to vanquish the unsightly scar tissue that required a visit to a not-to-be-named-lest-my-computer-contract-something-nefarious purveyor of such pleasantries, however, did not survive. Overuse, I assume. It’s not like I had plans for it afterwards but, just in case this whole dating thing doesn’t work out it, it would have come in handy. And for the record, it was never applied it to my lips in public.

But I digress.

For the past several years, I have methodically taken inventory. Of what I wanted and what I don’t and what stays and what goes. What is me and what was us. What is beyond salvation and what can be salvaged. What to do and what not to do. What to walk away from and what to walk toward. 

So one would think that the bed—the place where he died and where I slept unknowingly beside his lifeless body—would be first on the list of disposables.

But one would be wrong.

The bed is neither expensive, nor is it elaborate. Made from iron bands that gently curve, a single mattress sits above weakening wooden slats. For years, I have disappeared into its velvety winter layers and I’ve lain restless on its cool summer sheets. It gave me my children and it took away my husband. It swallowed my silent tears and embraced us in laughter. On a wooden platform that has weathered a lifetime.

With the mattress they took away its memories, leaving behind strong steely bands and weary wooden slats to be covered anew. A cold, empty platform covered with a warm, new foundation on which new memories will be formed. A shell to be filled. 

Just as soon as I figure out how to tighten the screws.