A New Chapter
Last night, I slept in my own room, in my own bed, for the first time in 12 years. And it felt weird and amazing. It was a mattress on the floor, so not quite a bed (yet), but it still felt amazing.
How did I get here?
12 years ago, when I last slept alone in a room that was just mine, I was single and fabulous in the city. Since then, I found a boyfriend, moved in together, got engaged, got married, got pregnant, had a baby, got cheated on, punched the ho-worker in the face, got divorced, and became a single mom with an anxious son who slept pressed up against me every night of his life until last night. He’s 10.
I’m a sucker, so never sleep trained my one and only baby. It broke my heart to hear him crying in the crib for his mom, and it felt anti-everything for me not to respond to his cries. You could say I made my own bed and then literally had to sleep in it.
But last month, against all odds, I scored a rent-stabilized below-market unit, and moved myself and my child from a 500+ sq ft 1 bedroom apartment, to a much larger 2 bedroom 2 bath with a kitchen that more than 1 person could stand in at the same time. After almost a decade of feeling like good things don’t happen to me — I suddenly caught a break. And just like that, things started looking up.
It was still hard. Moving was awful. I don’t know why I thought I’d have time to pack as a full-time working mom. I didn’t. I decided I’d just have to get everything over to the other side and deal with it on the other end. And I’ve been dealing with it on this end for the past 2 months. I don’t know why I think I’d have time to UNpack as a full-time working mom.
Plus, my kid did not see this as a windfall at all. He came, kicking and screaming, moaning and groaning. Did he notice the larger space we had? Or appreciate that he had his own bathroom? Or that it’s a ground floor unit so now he could run around without worrying about a downstairs neighbor? No. All he saw was the loss of the small cozy home he had with his mom, who his world revolved around. He told me he thought the new place was more lonely. He said his toothbrush was lonely, because it no longer sat beside mine. He missed things like brushing our teeth together at night and arguing over who got to spit into the sink first. He didn’t like that he couldn’t talk to me from the bedroom at a normal volume and I could hear him from the living room like he was right beside me. Now we had to shout a little. He had a point. I sort of missed our tiny kitchen. I missed small things — like that everything was literally within arm’s reach when I cooked. Now I had to take a few steps to reach the sugar. The indignity.
After a month though, small things began to change. We still are not unpacked, but we are settling in. The kid, Atom, said maybe the new place is not so bad after all. He ran to and from, playing nerf guns with his sitter, without any anxiety about the downstairs neighbor banging on the ceiling. He likes that our cat, Miso, can now have the zoomies without crashing into furniture or us. And one night, he announced, that he’s going to put himself to bed. He’s feeling confident. Because he’s a big kid now.
And he did.
Every night since then.
This child, who has slept tucked into my armpit since the day he was born, cut the cord, just like that. Cold turkey. In fact, a week later, he brought up at dinner, that he knows I’ve been sneaking into his bed at night after he goes to sleep.
“I know, mom,” he said, “Because I woke up at night and saw you sleeping.”
I paused.
“Atom,” I said, “You know that there’s literally nothing in my bedroom right now besides a dresser. And the hammock that we set up for you to hang out in, when I’m getting ready. There’s only one bed in this apartment right now and it’s in your room.”
“Go sleep in the hammock,” he said placidly.
Sleeping in the hammock is really cold.
And though my original plan was to get the living room set up first, and deal with my bedroom last, I suddenly needed a mattress ASAP.
Mattresses, as it turns out, are a lot like shoes. You know immediately when you try one, whether it fits or not. Tempurpedic made me feel like I was sinking in quicksand. I favor firm surfaces. In fact, I briefly considered using tatami mats with a shikibuton thrown over it. But then I read that shikibutons need to be aired out and beaten with a tennis racket on a weekly basis. That’s a tough sell in the city. So a traditional mattress it is. An extra firm one at that, from Mattress Firm.
This extra firm mattress arrived yesterday, courtesy of delivery guys from Ecuador and Uzbekistan. They deposited it on the floor of the master bedroom amidst a bunch of boxes. The master bedroom had been used primarily as a storage area until yesterday. The presence of the mattress there, which I dressed with sheets and pillows and a comforter, established it as a bedroom. And it compelled me to start organizing and unpacking the boxes in there.
So last night, I laid my head down on a pillow, on my own bed, in my own room, for the first time in a long time. And it felt great. Because even though I was on a mattress on the floor, amidst a bunch of half unpacked boxes, it reminded me of being the person I used to be. A young girl full of spunk and hope, moving from apartment to apartment every year, setting up her bedroom anew each time. It reminded me of new beginnings.