Jessica agreed to move in with me on one condition: I had to replace my mattress. We had been dating for two years, and this was the first time she had even mentioned that my mattress bothered her. If she had asked me to replace the bed frame or purchase a new headboard, I wouldn't have hesitated—I might've even understood—but she was asking me to go to the heart of the bed, the part that had seen me through the last ten years of my life, the part that had finally conformed to my body in such a way that I was now enjoying the best sleep of my life. She was asking me to make a sacrifice of incalculable measure.
See, to me, sleeping is more than the necessary recuperation of the body; it's my hobby. Some people collect coins or baseball cards. Others take cooking classes or pick up scuba diving. Me? I sleep. And when I say "sleep," I mean I get down and dirty with it. I own a special pair of socks, a lucky pillow (three smushed pillows squeezed into the same pillow case), and a comforter that my grandmother gave me as a high school graduation gift. I often propel myself through a trying day of working the grill at The Pit over at State University by thinking of how good the sleep will be when I finally get home. In fact, I believe I work even harder so that I can sleep even deeper.
The mattress was the first thing I bought when I moved out of my freshman dorm in college. There was nothing particularly special about it, but years of lying on it every-which-a-way, whether I was sharing it with someone or just lounging alone, broke it in the way an old car might be broken in by its owner. My father's 1993 pick-up truck has nearly 450,000 miles on the original engine, but he is the only one who knows the combination of jury-rigging necessary to get the thing to move down the street without cutting off. Like my father's truck, I am the only one who knows and, more importantly, appreciates the subtleties of my mattress, those lulls in the cushion where the springs have given way and cause you to roll toward the center of the bed.
And now Jessica wants me to abandon this mattress. It's like asking a man to give up being a fan of his favorite sports team, or even give up his religion.
As I stood listening to her request, she said in no uncertain terms that I had a choice to make: her or my mattress. I wish I could say that I labored over the decision—or even slept on it one last time—but in reality my response was reflexive, almost involuntary.
Sometimes I still think about Jessica and miss her dearly, but knowing that I can put on my socks, grab my comforter, and jump into my bed for some of the best sleep of my life, makes the pain much more bearable.