The bed

There is a four poster bed that I slept in ever since I left the crib on Burlwood. It’s been at my parent’s house since I moved out when I got married in 2002, almost five years ago today. It was my mom’s before it was mine and before that it was her aunt’s I believe.

I used to write notes and diary entries late at night in my bed and use the headboard as a flat place to bear down on. I remember fondly the night my mom came in and fussed at me for leaving marks underneath my paper on the headboard. I also remember (perhaps even more fondly) taking the finials off the posts and looking in to the mirror at the dressing table across the room as I sang New Kids on the Block songs into them as if they were microphones.

A few years ago I cleaned the drawers out and quietly reminisced when I read silly notes passed to me in middle school, lists of baby names scribbled on church bulletins, and cabbage patch kid birth certificates. Last night we moved the furniture out of my old room of my parent’s house (which is listed for sale) and into the Suburban to bring home.

When we were moving the dresser we took out the empty drawers to make it easier to carry down the flight of stairs. Apparently I didn’t get everything out that time five years ago when I came back from college, lived for a few months, and then prepared to move into my own new house with my brand new husband. Last night, lodged way in the back of one of the dresser drawer compartments we found a list of colors such as “brandywine,” “California raspberry,” “spiced cider,” and “ruby red” written on a sheet of paper. Beside each color name was a thin strip of dried nail polish. While my husband got his giggles under control, I grabbed the sheet of paper, took a quick glance and smiled fondly.

We haven’t moved the furniture into our house yet, but as it sits in our car in the driveway I can’t help but feel nostalgic as I think of carrying on its life in my own house, with my own kids, and new memories. Thanks Mom and Dad.