An Old Friend

31 years ago, just before I got married, it dawned on me that I would need a bed! Yeah, Roy and I had never discussed it, and so my dad and I ran to Levitz and picked up the cheapest double bed I could find, it took all of a half hour. Little did I know that this would be the one possession of ours that somebody, anybody, should have put a little thought into. Nobody told me that I would grow old on this bed and suffer aches in my joints. Nobody told me that I would grow bigger and a teeeny, tiiiiiny, double bed would seem awfully small, sooner or later. Nobody told me that I would fall off a horse at 45 and be bed ridden for months on an old, uncomfortable, sagging mattress.
I remember quite clearly when I was sixteen I visited my church leader in her huge home. She and her husband had a loft on the third story with a window dome over their bed looking up to the heavens. Underneath that dome was a teeeny, tiiiny, double bed. (Incidentally, they had 10 children) Another leader asked them how they could have spent all those years in that little bed. She replied, "Oh, we've always vowed that we would spend our lives in our marriage bed, and we've never regretted it." Well, that did it....being the romantic that I am, I vowed right there that when I married I would have a double bed and we would never get rid of it.
About, 5 years ago our children took pity on our aches and sleepless nights and bought us a new bed. But, they were considerate enough to buy another "double" bed because they knew our romantic history.
So today when a QUEEN size bed came in through the bedroom door and James and Chase happily wore it in, I couldn't help think that at the age of 50, some part of me had given up on the romantic notions of my past. I am bigger, and Roy does toss and turn, and I do have aches and pains and a little extra room would be nice - but, a large part of me wanted to tell them to take it back! Somehow hanging onto those young, romantic dreams seemed important. Why? I haven't really figured it out yet....or perhaps...in my heart of hearts, I'm still a young girl soon to be married with all the hopes and dreams ahead of her - and admitting otherwise, isn't something I'm eager to embrace.