I am retraining myself. I don’t hate changing my sheets.
I don’t hate changing my sheets.
When I was little, I had a big, glorious bed. It was at least full-size, maybe even king. It was a huge expanse of comfy blankets and flat, empty space to play, dotted by the occasional stuffed animal friend. It was beautiful, too, with a hardwood headboard and awesome posts at the bottom like in Bedknobs and Broomsticks only made of wood. It was an antique–it had been my great-grandmother’s.
I loved that bed. I could hide a hundred stuffed animals and a peanut butter and jelly experiment under it. I could wage war across it, playing Sorry or rummy or parcheesi. Once my brother and I pretended it was a trampoline until we broke one of the slats and had to prop it up with a pillar of bricks carefully disguised by a messy floor.
I loved the bed but I hated changing the sheets. No matter how I got my parents to turn it, that bed took up more than half my room. Three corners were always against a wall, and that one in the corner of the room…I had to crawl across the mattress to get the sheet on there. I had to lift the mattress up enough I could wrestle that dang sheet on, and do it far enough the sheet wouldn’t just snap off when I let go.
Most of the time, it snapped off, and I had to do it again.
Once I got the blasted fitted sheet on there, I was worn out and grumpy and more than ready to be done, but no–had to get the top sheet on. And tucked in under the mattress down at the bottom, where those wonderful posts with their grand knobs became obstacles. Even my little hands had trouble getting between the mattress and the foot-board, and once there they barely had the strength to do what was needed. And it hurt–I would always scrape my hands trying to get in there.
I tell you, that was one big bed. After the top sheet came the covers, and each last one had to be tucked down smooth against the wall and across the foot of the bed. It was Pennsylvania, and one lone furnace vent heated the entire second floor. I needed a lot of covers.
TL;DR
When my mom got sick, I took advantage of her distraction by no longer changing my sheets. After she died, of course, no one cared if I made my bed or not.
Eventually we rearranged the household. I ended up with a twin bed–a folding guest-bed, actually–in a room twice the size of the one I had. I arranged it so only the head of the bed was against the wall.
I still hated making my bed.
It’s probably been thirty years since I had to change the sheets on that great big bed. I don’t even know where it is or if it still exists. I’ve never since had a bed so difficult to change. But for most of my life, I have hated making my bed. Love, love, LOVE snuggling into clean sheets–hate putting them on the bed.
But the other night, when I went into my room at well past bedtime and realized I’d stripped my bed but not gotten around to re-making it, I wanted to cry. I wanted to sleep wrapped in a sheet with my comforter thrown over and worry about it tomorrow. Hell, did I even have clean sheets?
I did. My favorite ones, the pretty soft green with dark green bamboo leaves. And while I was debating exactly how I was going to avoid making my bed–I made my bed.
I tell you, no one was more surprised than I was. Took maybe ten minutes, didn’t hurt at all.
WTH? How did this happen?
As I snuggled into my new-made, clean-smelling, so-comfy bed that night, I got to thinking. How many other harmless or even fun things have I convinced myself that I hate? How else am I sabotaging myself?
What the hell am I going to do about it? Try to think before I react. Catch myself in the act of whining. Change my sheets more often.
Mmm, clean soft sheets…