For the past three months, I’ve been living with an extra mattress. It sits there against the wall of my barely three-yards-wide bedroom, leaning and taking up a foot of floor space. It’s a replica of the one I sleep on but newer and wrapped in plastic.
I run into it occasionally or turn my body horizontal to get past it. And when the ceiling fan spins, the plastic wrap bounces, making a thin creaking sound. Like rubbing tissue paper between your hands.
I could get rid of it, or change it out and throw out the old one, leave it on the curb, send it to the dump, spend money on a storage unit to leave one lone mattress in it. But I don’t, and it stays.
The mattress was purchased to outfit a ratty apartment two years ago, and lived on the tan carpet floor before my bed frame was delivered (after getting lost twice). This apartment does not bring back good memories — only memories of a horrible roommate and nights spent turning into a puddle of tears on the floor.
But my mattress was stable then, warm and welcoming, holding me in my bedroom with the door always locked. I should be grateful.
After moving back home into my childhood room, I brought the mattress with me, and now I have two. It sits like a frumpy reminder that this — this time, place, life back at home, is temporary. It’s waiting to be packed up and shipped elsewhere.
I spend lots of time agonizing over the future. I scroll through job openings and adjust my resume, then send it out into the world with crossed fingers and a jade plant leaf.
I think about the girl I might be in five, ten years. She comes across vividly, living in another city with new friends and a new life. She writes and makes money and doesn’t feel so behind. But as far as the imagination goes, I can never touch her. Can never believe she might someday be me.
I could change the mattress out, but then what? Is this where I am now? Is this my life?
If I unwrap the mattress, it creates permanence.
Because you see, as long as the mattress is wrapped and ready to go, so am I. I am going somewhere.
But if I unwrap it and fit it to the bed frame, then I am here, I am here to stay, and this is where I’ve ended up, in the exact same place the old mattress used to sleep. I’ve gone nowhere at all.
So, I leave the mattress wrapped in my room, taking up space. I live with it. So it can remind me someday I won’t have to.
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