How To Make Your Own Bed

Vol. 1, Issue 45

I had no bed for a couple years. Well, none of my own. I started out on a girlfriend's couch, then went to an air mattress, then went onto a girlfriend's bed, then straight back to an air mattress once I moved out of her place for good. One time, in my new apartment on Bowery, I took methadone for a week and woke up with my face on the radiator, the air mattress half-deflated. My roommate saw me lying there, woke me up, showed me the methadone bottle and said "I'm throwing these away."

The air mattress had a rip in it, so I needed to get my own bed. I bought a mattress and a box spring off Craig's List because it was $75. It was a single, most likely a NYU college kid's bed who'd now moved on to a more grown-up bed. I bought it, then I also paid a Man With a Van another $50 to transport it back to my place. It fit just fine, but it had no bed frame. I promised myself I'd get that later, but at least now I wouldn't have to sleep on the equivalent of an old trash raft.

One problem was that the wooden box spring had a bee's nest inside it. I woke up with a bee in my shirt. So I got rid of the box spring and went back to just the mattress.

I moved out from there and bought my friend's old Ikea bed, that kind with the frame that looked like it was a Swedish kid's toy. That lasted a little while, but those slats were pretty flimsy and broke real quick so I was back to the mattress on the floor again. I got some of those gray bricks later on, though, and that kept it off the dirty floor until I moved out again.

I moved to Philly for about a year, moved back to Brooklyn, and I think my parents bought me my next bed as a birthday present that year. I got it from 1-800-M-A-T-T-R-E-S, last 's' left off for savings. When the delivery people came to drop off the mattress it didn't fit up the narrow stairway so they had to take it right back. I slept on the floor for a week until a smaller one arrived and, once again, I didn't have a bed frame, just more bricks.

When I finally was able to afford a grown-up bed–a queen mattress, a normal box spring and this beautiful bed frame from One Kings Lane–I also bought some fancy sheets and a brand new down comforter that was one of the softest things I'd ever touched. I even bought not one but TWO duvet covers for it. My bed game was gonna be tight from here on out, or at least that's what I told myself after I finally paid a Task Rabbit to put all of it together for me.

The new apartment I lived in with the fancy bed also had a washer and dryer, so I no longer had to send out for laundry like I always did. For most of my time living in New York and Brooklyn, I'd wait until I was completely out of underwear or shirts before I cleaned my clothes, so my laundry bags would be these huge, overflowing bags of underwear, my "good" thrift store t-shirts, musty button-downs and mismatched socks. I'd struggle to carry these giant bags back a couple days later that weighed at least 85 pounds and always had a separate plastic bag of folded clothes that wouldn't fit inside the main one.

Once I was home, I'd set out the newly-folded clothes on my unmade bed with the bricks underneath it or the bees inside it, marveling at how *nice* my clothes actually were when they were neat and clean like this. I swore one day I'd take better care of myself.

At the new apartment with the washer and dryer, I started doing laundry pretty consistently at first, but my druggie, idiot-brain lifestyle caught up to me once again; there was always a huge pile of dirty clothes on my beautiful fancy bed. I'd still sleep on the bed even if there were clothes on it, I'd just move them to the side or push them with my foot to whatever side was more open. Sometimes I'd just sleep on top of them.

I barely changed the sheets. The duvet cover was never completely over the comforter. There were always dirty clothes stuck inside it, too.

When I did wash my clothes and my sheets, sometimes I'd take them all out of the dryer, half wet, and just begin to lay them all out on the bed, usually because I was in such a rush to go someplace and needed something clean immediately–if it was damp, that meant it was clean, right?

This went on for a couple years, even after I moved on to the next fancy apartment, right up until I had to move out because I could no longer afford it anymore. I forget who I sold the bed to, or if I just had someone take it and haul it out to the trash, or who disassembled the bed frame, but the night before I finally moved out from that apartment I was sleeping on an air mattress again. The next day I packed up the air mattress and was about to throw it away, but my friend convinced me to keep it because it was a good one and, also, he reminded me, I may need it again someday. I think he still has it stored in his basement, just in case.

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Sorry for the long-ass intro. Now I'd like to introduce our first comic strip feature done by our fantastic illustrator Edith Zimmerman, called "How to Make Your Own Bed."

Bed-making is a huge deal in the 12-Step community, because it's a symbol of progress and self-responsibility and dignity. (Seriously. I've been to meetings where a person shared they made their bed and then they burst into tears. It's a thing.)

Edith has done so much wonderful stuff in her career, but she's extraordinarily skilled at illustrating and I'm so honored she shares her work with us. Please promote it and pass it along.

Also: If you haven't read "My First Year Sober" by her, I encourage you to do that, too. It's one of the best things I've ever read about recovery and was a huge inspiration for this project.

Onward! - AJD

This is The Small Bow newsletter. We've tinkered with the format a bit this week. We'll probably tinker some more.
But still, every Tuesday morning we'll send it out. It's fun and helpful to talk to other wild-asses, weirdos, and wasteoids. Please forward this along to anyone you think would enjoy it.

Our feature archive can be found here.

If you'd like to check in with me personally, I can be reached at ajd@thesmallbow.com.