i would just like everyone to know that i have acquired a full sized mattress. after two separate 40-minute journeys to an apparently legitimate though visibly suspicious “liquidation warehouse” in sandy, i’m officially sleeping in a big girl bed.
this transition has brought me more joy than i ever could have predicted. when did my own comfort become something unbelievable? i often avoid making larger purchases even when i can afford them, even when i know the purchase is inevitable, to procrastinate the discomfort of having spent more than $50 on something. additionally, in this case, buying a bigger bed implied the cumbersome, arduous task of lugging downstairs my too-small, antique brass and iron bed frame, which could indisputably kill someone if dropped from the sky like a cartoon piano.
when i first bought said bed frame, i had nothing to do with its ascension to my bedroom, because naturally there was a man sitting around to whom the task was better suited. this is important context, because when i disassembled it with the intent of shimmying it down my 19th century (read: steep) staircase myself, i couldn’t have known what an insane(ly dangerous) idea that would prove to be.
long story long, it was 8am, and i was already in my cowboy boots, energized by the sudden manic desire to drastically change every aspect of my life, starting with my bed. before i could fit my fabulous new mattress into my room, i had to evacuate the twin size frame. how heavy could it be? i managed the foot board and smaller rods with ease. tearing up and down the stairs like there were prizes at each landing, it was hard to conceive of ever needing a man. sometimes my feminism is stereotypical and simple: it feels as textbook and reductive as it sounds when it comes out.
it’s one thing to hold an iron bar in each hand. it’s another to hold an iron bar in each hand while running frantically down hundred-year-old stairs in zero-tread cowboy boots. i fell, obviously, my body landing flat and diagonal on the staircase, the bars falling into an “X” across my body as if two swords encasing me in a medieval tomb.
the stairs were bound to survive, despite a few missing chunks awarded to the iron. besides a few minor scrapes and annoyingly bruised momentum, my day went on without a hitch. my coworkers didn’t share my nonchalance when i mentioned the occurrence in passing later that evening.
“you what?!” my manager blurted, looking up, whiplash style, from the scheduling binder. “allie, that’s how people die.”
“yeah, but i didn’t die,” i shrugged. “that’s not how i die.”
it’s fun to pretend i have a say in the matter. after one too many close calls, life can start to feel like a video game, and it doesn’t matter if you fall down the stairs, because you’ll end up respawning anyway. for reasons that feel obvious, this is sort of a slippery slope.
i love living my life without fear – i love the power and confidence i feel when i hoist antique iron over my shoulders like the town blacksmith. i do not love when i fall asleep at the wheel on the interstate and crash into a pine tree in the median going 70 miles per hour. yeah, that did actually happen.
my first brush with death returns to me on seemingly random occasions, its sensory details vivid like a familiar recurring dream. i must have been seven or eight at most, on a tour through some caverns with my family in appalachia. we were walking over a narrow metal bridge noticeably missing safety railings, which makes sense because it was probably 2005, when people cared a lot less if you fell off a bridge. there was water beneath us, tens of feet down, glowing alien white in the artificial underground light. i realized i could fall, and if i fell, i wouldn’t make it, and that was the first time i considered my own demise.
i didn’t think about the caverns when i fell down the stairs. after the car accident, i thought about the caverns a lot. on the bridge, i had the wherewithal to cling to my father’s arm. there’s no father’s arm on the highway, nor in the wooden echo of the stairwell. when something happens unexpectedly, you don’t have time to consider caution.
i’ve read it a million times: think of all the love you’ve yet to feel. all the friends you’ve yet to meet. all the fun you’ve yet to have. i get why it’s less common to consider the fear to come. to some extent, our thoughts are prophecy, and i don’t delight in predicting pain. but to have love, to have joy, you simply have to fall down the stairs. some people, though beautiful and charming, fall down the stairs more than others.
so, yeah, maybe, i could have died, but i got to sleep in my new bed. and if i went on reading into it, it’d be harder to revel in that luxury.
obsession of the week
everything i know about love by dolly alderton. this book is aggressively british and i ate it up like the beans. it’s believably contemporary, alderton detailing her shenanigans in dating, friendship, and work throughout her twenties. i found it genuinely funny and relatable, which is rare. an honest treasure. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.