Twin Bed Secrets

So I realized this morning that I had officially written about Bed Sweet Bed without offering any sort of introduction. And since it's a fairly sweet and comical story I thought you might rather enjoy it on a Monday morning...so here you go! You can tip me later. I take cash or checks.

When the Husband and I got married I had a twin bed from Ikea and he had a double bed from the first half of the LAST century. Naturally, I informed him that I would not be sleeping on said antiquated bed. Sorry. It's not you it's me. So we got rid of his relic of a bed and slept on my twin bed for the first three months. I know. It will seem odd that we, two fully grown adults, chose to sleep on a twin bed. And why? you might ask? Because we're cheap. And also busy. So by the time we had decided to fork over the money for a decent bed we had to find the time to go bed shopping. The other problem was that we liked it. I slept wedge against the wall and the Husband some how defied gravity on the other edge of the bed. It was cozy. And there was much spooning involved.

We eventually made our way to Macy's a bought a proper bed. Queen-sized, pillow-top. It is all things comfortable and welcoming. We had gotten this amazingly soft Wamsutta sheets as wedding gifts so we promptly made up the new bed and got in it. I lay on my accustomed side and the Husband lay on his. At some point this small quiet voice comes out of the dark, "Where did you go?" It was so pitiful and sweet and sad all at the same time. The bed was HUGE compared with the twin. So I scooted in to the middle and he rolled over and we've essentially continued to sleep in the same space as a twin bed ever since.

When I was reading for my oral exams, I read Evgenii Onegin by Alexander Pushkin. I read the translation by Douglas Hofstadter and then read a bit from his book on translation called Le ton beau de Marot where he writes about his late wife and her struggle with cancer. She had always called their bed "bed sweet bed" and after she died he took to translating Evgenii Onegin. He talks about how he would get up in the morning and fix a cup of coffee and get his Russian dictionary, Russian version of Evgenii Onegin and his notebook and he would climb back in "bed sweet bed" and start to translate.

I read the whole story to the Husband. We made Bed Sweet Bed the place where only good things can happen. No arguments, no fighting, no meanness, not even fear--if we're reading a scary book, it has to be read in the living room.

I was thinking the other night about how differently my life has turned out from what I thought that it would be. I never thought I would be married. NEVER. I just figured it wasn't in my cards, that I was too set in my ways, too independent, too much the workaholic. And then...well, things changed. And it was odd. I resisted for a while. But I think if someone had whispered in my ear about Bed Sweet Bed and how wonderful the whole life with the Husband would be...I wouldn't have resisted so much.