That’s at least what my husband claims. I came back from a month of traveling yesterday afternoon and my husband picked me up at the airport. Once at home I took my suitcase to the laundry, went to the bedroom and started undressing.
My husband followed me and laughed: “So you are going to bed. Shall I bring you a coffee or beer or something”.
“Coffee please, I will try to stay awake a couple of hours before sleeping”.
This scenario has repeated itself thousands of times during our 17 years of marriage. And yes, he is right. I do love my bed or beds in general, because it is not actually any specific bed I love. It is generally lying in a bed that I love. It is a great position to do a lot of things, like reading books, watching movies, eating breakfast and so many other activities one can undertake in a bed.
Ever since I started in the work life, a bed has felt like the safest place in the world, even though I know most people die in a bed. In fact as a child I did have a fear of dying when sleeping, but then I developed a ritual that if I fell asleep on my right side, I would not die. The reasoning was based on somebody saying on television that it was tougher on the heart if you lie on your left side. Not that I had any heart problems. But “better safe than sorry”, was my motto then.
Maybe my love of lying in a bed is related to my work life during which I was sitting on many various chairs, mainly in offices and meeting rooms. Therefore I associate sitting with something less pleasant and lying as something relaxing. On many occasions, I nevertheless write difficult emails or fill complicated on-line forms while lying in bed. The lying position eases the uncomfortable task.
My husband finds it somehow controversial that I often go travelling and have to sleep in substandard beds, on sofas and even on window sills at airports like on this last trip, when I was stranded in an American airport after midnight and decided it was not worth trying to find a hotel hoping to get a seat on a 6 o’clock flight to my following destination.
The explanation for this controversial balancing with comfortable and uncomfortable lying spaces must be my need for contrasts and challenges. Otherwise I would start taking my easy life in comfortable beds for granted.
Time to get wiser 