You’ve Made Your Bed, Now Lie In It

Making Up Your Bed

It’s a funny realization of living alone with few guests coming by. The bed does NOT have to be made up. That’s right boys and girls, the sheets and blankets and covers are thrown off in the morning upon awaking and reapplied in the evening upon the evening resting period.

Even when I travel, I often sleep on top of the bedspread wrapping the corners over me then flapping them back without ruffling the sheets.

I remember doing this in my youth so I would not have to go back and make up the bed.

What is making up the bed anyway? Rearranging the rumpled sheets and straightening the covers, folding down the top and placing the floated pillows on top to give the presentation that no one has slept there.

Was this for “Good Housekeeping” or just part of our civilized recreation of culture in our society?

Sure, I know how to make up a bed, even before fitted sheets. Even in summer camp, we were required to make up our bed with military precession of tight blankets checked with dropping a coin on it. I even lived through the “short sheeting” pranks of campers.

But now, with no one around,

And what happens during the night? Looking at the sheets, blankets, quilts, or other covers in the morning, it must have been a wild adventure during the darkness. Everything is twisted and scattered and thrown about as if a tornado had been through.

These are only signs of my restless movements that have been a part of me for decades. As a youth, I would bang my head on the pillow to get to sleep. I’m sure there are initials for this now, but I seemed to be hypertensive. I would bounce on the back seat of our car for hours while traveling.

Now I just have restless legs that have to move and wave and shutter back and forth before sleep calms the beast. It’s not a bad thing unless someone else is in the area and will get abused by the jerky reaction.

Sleeping

This is the reason for having the bed to lie in. The body needs rest and any flat surface will do, but a soft comfortable setting is preferred. Soft fluffy pillows wrapped in linen crowning a smooth cool surface of layers of warmth ready to wrap around and cuddle into slumber.

Without much stress left over from the day, the eyes close and immediately sleep takes over. Sometimes exhaustion brings an early yawn, telling the mind that the body is ready. No clock is needed to let the body know when it needs to rest.

But then, in the middle of the night, a slow awaking takes place. Through blurry eyes the darkness still covers the windows. Sometimes it’s an easy turn of the pillows and back to slumber, other times it brings the thoughts of the upcoming events while other times it requires the scrapping of the drool from the dreams that fill the brain during the dark hours.

Then at the break of morning, as the suns light filters through the night and the birds begin their conversation I awake. Every morning I awake at dawn.

Dreaming

Those strange stories played in your head while the body rest. Some say these are reactions to the brains struggle to comprehend what has happened during the day, a sort of organization of thoughts.

I will not try to comprehend them, but I have realized that I have similar dream patterns now. They were not always this way. I’m sure I had dreams about things I wanted and desired which turned wet. I also had scary dreams when I would awake in a shock and a sweat.

Now the dreams seem to become familiar. There is at least one or two people I know or knew in them. They are always placed in urban settings, usually inside old buildings like warehouses. My dreams are black and white and have no sound, but speaking is not necessary, the meaning is clear. The purpose of the dream is a search for an answer. Sometimes they are old problems from when I was working and I am remembering the struggle to find a solution and other times it is a frantic wandering through unknown areas to find…….? The unknown??

I don’t know what they mean, nor do I care much. They just happen.

But the body tells me it is time to unravel the covers and climb back into the darkness that is sleep.

And perhaps, wake tomorrow for another lighted adventure until it is time to venture into the inner self.