Notes on a Bed.
by pugflavoredsub
Shortly after Dad was gone, my mother forced me into the habit of posting written reminders at the foot of my bed. Imagine, please, my handwriting in bright red ink on hot pink index cards - Did you plan out what you are wearing tomorrow? Did you remember to finish your math exercises? Did you take out the garbage? Did you say your prayers? Imagine, please, the notes taped on the bed frame with so many layers of scotch tape that the oak finish flakes off entirely in large patches. Imagine, please, falling asleep with words poking out in between your toes:
And alw ys re mber tha e Lord lov s you, Sa h.
The notes were usually the last things I saw before I fell asleep. Sometimes I even dreamt about them – dreamt I was brushing my teeth for exactly three minutes, remembering to scrape my tongue at the end. Dreamt that I was making sure I woke up my brother if he was sleeping through our alarm. Dreamt that the Lord, whom I imagined was bearded and fat like Santa but with a bigger chip on his shoulder, was hovering directly above me as I slept.
I’m closing in on 30 and I still keep to this habit, as much as it embarrasses me to think about it; Oh, sure – in my more rebellious years, I started sleeping on my stomach to avoid the words. In college, I stopped writing the notes all together, worried about what my roommates would think and, more importantly, how much beer money I’d be charged for damaging university property.
But as soon as I moved back home, I fell into it like a child, rubbing the more cherished reminders I had kept on my bed throughout the years:
“But above all else, to thine own self be true.” Hamlet
– from 8th grade, at a time when I thought I was a singularly brilliant child for liking Shakespeare.
“Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.” Proverbs 31:30
– from 9th grade, when I began to wonder if my brilliance was a sinful distraction.
“As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.” Proverbs 26:11
–from 11th grade, when I began to wonder if I took Proverbs too seriously.
That first night back home, I sat on my mattress and ran my hands over these odd tidbits, each barely legible after being worn down by my feet throughout the years. Peeling off the cards, I briefly wondered how many socks had I ruined in my childhood because of those notes. How many times did I wake up with big toes the color of a Bic ballpoint pen?
I looked at the bare footboard and wrote my first reminder to myself as a newly minted adult:
Buy washable markers.
I ask myself if I continue to write notes because I’m still sleeping in the same house, in the same bed frame, making the same amount of money I made then (nothing), tiptoeing around my mother’s same unwaveringly erratic moods….
But I think it’s mostly because I need all the help I can get.
I think I’ve listened to every single version of this aria on YouTube and Spotify combined, this makes me melt so much. (THE LAST 30 SECONDS!) It’s a bit sick, but then again …
