Yesterday, my friend David asked me if I always sleep on the same side of the bed.My answer?
Yes. Absolutely. Completely. Totally. Why would I sleep on the other side of the bed when the right side is so comfortable and I'm so damned used to it???? Why???
If you're thinking I over-reacted to his suggestion that I might try sleeping on the other side of my bed as a pattern-changing New Thing, then you're right. I did over-react. But, I mean, come on--some routines are ingrained into us.
(Am I using that phrase correctly? "Ingrained into us." You know how sometimes you'll say something and then it will sound so completely wrong? Or you'll type a word too many times and then it will start to look like it's sanskrit or something. Well, I just wrote that phrase "ingrained into us" and now it looks so completely wrong.)
I sleep on the side of the bed closest to the door. I never even thought about it until my friend David brought it up, but I have always slept on the side of the bed closest to the door. I think, subconsciously, I sleep on the side of the bed closest to the door so that, if I have a heart attack in the middle of the night, then the paramedics will be able to get to me more quickly because, hello, I'm near the door.
I don't worry about having heart attacks in the middle of the night as much as I used to worry about having heart attacks in the middle of the night, but I still sleep on the side of the bed closest to the door because it's ingrained into me. (Even if that phrase isn't really a phrase--and it very well might be a phrase--I'm going to keep using it until, wait, hold on, I'm gonna just go ahead and google it) (okay, it is a phrase) (why was I so paranoid that it wasn't a phrase?) (what is wrong with me?)
So last night I slept on the other side of the bed, voila: New Thing #37.
And it. Felt. So. Fucking. Weird. Like I was floating in space or something.
But I did it. I made it through the night. On the other side of the bed. As weird as it fucking felt. And I didn't have a heart attack! So I got that New Thing out of the way and now I can go back to sleeping on the correct side of the bed, i.e. the side closest to the door, and if I have a heart attack tonight, then the paramedics will know where to find me.
15 comments:
ingrained IN me? maybe?
i got a new bed last week - moved from a queen to a full. and it is sooo comfortable. and huge. i am in love with my new bed. but i realized i was sleeping on only one side. so i moved over to the other side, thinking, 'wow, there is so much i don't even know about you yet...' i decided i am willng to explore all that my bed has to offer. i never knew it could be like this.
xo
lindsay
i meant a full to a queen. duh.
l
lindsay, i like to imagine that you upgraded from a queen to a full. and you're luxuriating in all of that space.
dustin, i'm afraid to try tranquilizers because i'm afraid i would become addicted. seriously. i'm too neurotic for any sort of drug.
O.M.G.
I too sleep on the side of the bed closest to the door. Always.
When we moved from Hollywood to Santa Monica, Keith was confused about why we had to "trade sides of the bed" based on the POV that there is the "left side" and the "right side."
When I explained that where I sleep has NOTHING to do with RIGHT and LEFT and EVERYTHING to do with CLOSEST TO THE DOOR-NESS, he knew he had shacked with an odd bird (as if he didn't know that already).
Now, *I* sleep on the side of the bed closest to the door b/c that's the quickest route out of the house in case of fire, earthquake, etc.
Never thought about ease-of-access to paramedics. That would work too.
You look at how people can get to you. I look out how I can get the heck out of there.
Somewhere an analyst is loving us. And developing theories. *giggle*
Oh noooooooooooo.
Sadly realizing we could never have a sleepover.
:(
tonight try sleeping at the foot of the bed.
Oh, also, by the way, yes, Lindsay, I think you're totally right in regards to the whole "ingrained IN me" thing. When I read your comment this morning, my brain was still so whacked out thinking that "ingrained INTO me" was right, but that it didn't feel right, that I basically glossed over your suggestion that it might be "ingrained IN me." Like, my brain just couldn't grasp the correct phrase. But then I came back to this comment thread just now and I reread your comment and I was like "INGRAINED IN ME! OF COURSE! THAT'S IT! VOILA!"
Bonnie, I hope that there are LOTS of analysts reading both of our blogs and that they are coming up with lots of theories about why we're so fucked up. (Not that we're really that fucked up.) (I mean, honestly, we aren't--not in the scheme of things, not on the scale of "people who are really fucked up.")
Wouldn't it be cool if a psychiatrist or a psychologist or an analyst or an analrapist (like Tobias Funke) wrote a book about one of us?
A book called Erik and Bonnie: Crazy and Crazier, sorta like that book "Charlotte: Light and Dark" (you know, the book that was based on Brenda Chenowith's childhood) (here I go again, talking about tv characters like they're real people).
I suppose that if someone wrote a book about one of us and our neurosese (is THAT right? what on earth is the plural of neurosis?) that would mean that we were pretty fucked up.
I mean, not just fucked up, but, like, REALLY fucking fucked up. Like, fucked up enough to have a book written about you is pretty dang super duper fucked up.
And I don't think either one of us is THAT fucked up. Like, I've never mistaken my wife for a hat or anything. (Have you?) However, I HAVE mistaken red for green. Like, plenty of times.
So who knows.
Oh, and, if we ever have a sleepover, I could always sleep on the ground. There you go, crisis solved.
Jesse, I have been contemplating taking your suggestion and sleeping at the foot of my bed, but I can't do it. I can't. I just can't. It seems way too weird. Like, I think I would have the most fitful night and I would end up falling off the bed. Because I'm too tall to sleep in that direction and my legs would dangle off and I would just be a mess the next day. And I don't want to be a mess the next day. So I'm not going to do it. Okay?
I truly understand the whole paramedics thing. This is why I am a sock sock, shoe shoe person when I get dressed. You know, in case there is a fire. --Lanie
I feel like I might have discussed this before, possible with Gina.
Lanie, I'm more of a flip-flop flip-flop person myself.
once, when i was little, i woke up with my head where my feet were supposed to be.
and another time, i slept over at this rich girl's house, and i tried to impress her by telling her i could sleep in the splits (you know - "can you do the splits?" it was really impressive as a kid if you could do the splits. it was like you were headed for the olympics or something. so i figured sleeping in the splits would be even *more* impressive).
wasn't being a kid fun?
t*pops
being a kid WAS fun. i miss being a kid sometimes. i like to imagine that you used to sleep in the splits. i know that sounds like it's something that's probably super impossible to do, but if there's anyone i could imagine actually being able to do that as a child, it would be you. how weird is that?
why do you think you woke up with your head at the foot of the bed? what kind of dreams do you think you were having? that's some wild sleeping to get into such an extremely different position from whence you started. do you think you got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and then you got confused when you came back to the bed and you got into the bed wrong? have you ever done it again? woken up like that? i think it would feel like my head was floating in the air or something to sleep with my head at the foot of the bed. my head likes to be near a wall. maybe that's why i hate camping? i mean, other than the bugs and the pooping in the bushes?
well, when you're a kid you don't think about those worries - you have much greater worries, like "what happens if the house starts on fire while i'm sleeping?" - i remember laying in bed at night not being able to sleep because at school they tell you all day long that it's quite possible your house could burn down at any moment, or that you yourself could likely catch fire at the family picnic, or just walking down the street for that matter, who knows!
they put these worries into your head and then tell you all you have to do is just stop, drop, and roll - this simple solution for what always seemed to me like an incredibly complex problem! fire - this element completely out of our control - just stop drop and roll - and it's gone?!
all this from a fireman's daughter!
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