Decorator's Handbook: Bedrooms & Breakups

My mattress has started to dip. The King Koil pillow top back saver chiropractic everything has a me-shaped slope on its left side.

Who would've thought? Certainly not me, I mean the thing is only four years old. Having a newfangled, contemporary bed without a box spring probably contributed to the problem, not to mention sleeping in a basement room where the entire floor dips to the left. I've put off the purchase for this long, but as of a couple of hours ago I am the proud new owner of a 610 coil dual pillow top non-fip Orthopedic Supreme, in white fabric. Needless to say, I'm very eager to take it for a test drive.

Secret time: even if my mattress was in perfect condition, I'd be getting a new one anyway.

I'm a firm believer in vibes. Stepping on a crack will not break your mother's back, but if you think happy thoughts, happy things will eventually happen to you. This mattress has to go, because it has Jess written all over it.

I got this mattress a year and something into living with him. We'd been on my crappy futon before then, and took it as a sign to buy better bedroom fixtures when I started parking a stool beside the nightstand to pull myself up every morning from back pain, and he developed a permanent kink in his neck.

It was kismet, that mattress and us, which we discovered while on a most romantic Valentine's Day getaway at a B&B. The bed, pillows, sheets, were the most luxurious anything we'd ever experienced, and while flipping through the room service menu, saw a price list for the bedroom mattress and linens in the back. New, custom made ones, of course. Made a call as soon as we got back, and were sleeping in blessed, pain-free peace a few days later.

Our relationship sucked, I won't deny it. Max suckage, in fact. But no matter how bad it got, our few moments of intimacy, closeness and sharing were mostly done here. How can I do or experience anything truly new, if he is always with me?

Thanks to moms, who knows where to get the best prices on just about anything and within a 50k radius of the house, I went to the Super Direct Mattress Company, a small, unassuming storefront with just a pile of mattresses stacked inside. Very Princess and the Pea, if you get my drift. I quickly narrowed down my choice to two, and spent the next quarter hour jumping from one to the other, testing out their comfort levels with a myriad of poses.

This is where my mother says, "Why are you bouncing up and down so much? All you're going to do on it is sleep."

Bless my mother her charming innocence or, at the very least, her subtle prying. Simultaneously, me and the shopkeeper raise our eyebrows and give her strange looks. He then turns to me and asks, "How old are you?"

Me: "Old enough!"

We all have a good laugh, I make my choice, and we're off. It's being delivered early tomorrow afternoon.

Tonight is my last sleep on this mattress. I've said goodbye and thanked it for many good nights, and put aside the bad. I know it wasn't the mattress' fault. And, part of me is truly sad to see it go. This was the very first mattress I ever bought myself, in my very first apartment in the city where I paid the rent myself. This is where we stayed in bed once for the entire weekend, giggling and running our hands all over each other. This is where he once snuck in at 2am while I was in a deep sleep for a fiery, impromptu love session while his friends watched tv in the living room.

This was also where Blue used to kiss me every morning, that tiny, three pound handful of puppy, so tuckered out from the exhausting journey on the mountains of duvet, that he would pass out on my neck. He still sleeps on the pillow beside me to this day.

Good memories are hard to forget, but so are shitty ones. This was also the place I came to after the shouting and rages began, convinced my world was coming to an end.

It has to go.

I'll admit that I'm less keen on dumping my sheets. Everything is highly fashionable, super high thread count and dammit, just looks really good. I've justified their staying through extra long, hot cleanings. If the Kitchenaid + Tide can get rid of coffee, lipstick and grass stains, then they can also wash that man right out of my cotton.

But even though I'm keeping most of the old ones, I did get a couple of new sets. Just because.