Move the Bed, Make the Bed

“Go to bed.”

As a child we heard that following our favorite TV show or when we mis-behaved. We didn’t look forward to it. ?As adults, we wouldn’t have to be told that twice. It conjures up thoughts of a Saturday afternoon nap.

As a child, once finally settled, bed provided a place for imagining what was under it or what was in store for the next day. We hoped to dream of going to faraway places and that we wouldn’t wet the bed. After a hopefully dry, nightmare free night, we arose, made our bed, and started our day dreading that in twelve short hours we’d hear “go to bed.” On a weekly basis we changed the beds. Ensuring hospital corners as trained by our mothers. (All four corners as fitted sheets weren’t available!)

The discipline of making the bed was lost on most of us as teenagers. The alarm, or impatient parent, blared, reminding us that we had to be in homeroom in less than forty-five minutes. We couldn’t move as we likely heard “go to bed” just five hours before! No time to make the bed.

We returned to our bed to do homework, ensured that what we hid under its mattress was still there, and if lucky enough to have a telephone close to the bed, had what we thought were the most important conversations of our lives (with people we just spent the entire day with). Then at 1:00 a.m., go to bed.

Whether off to college, the military or our first apartment (if we didn’t take our childhood bed with us) we finally had a new, or at least different, bed. Whether the bed was comfortable didn’t matter. It was a safe place in a new environment, a respite from what could have been a challenging first couple of days in a new space. If in the military it is likely the bed was made each day, and beds in first apartments were made to prove to doubting parents that a clean and orderly home could be maintained (for at least a month). However, a quick fluff of the duvet was likely the only bedmaking in college.

Bed is an intimate place. Bed is personal.

The bed of a single person is a sanctuary. There is no guilt for staying in it late into the morning and likely no interruptions in the middle of the night except perhaps the pet that sleeps on its human’s head, the cool pillow or takes up too much space. Sharing a bed for the first time, whether temporarily (wink) or as part of a life-long commitment is monumental. The bed shared with a partner is the place of infinite memories. Pillow talk, those emotional, personal, sometimes transformative discussions, and sharing it with children and pets make it so.

The hump in the middle, possible a flat pillow, the duvet that covers it and the items that are on its nightstand are part of the intimacy. In our role as a senior move manager, we move these amazing pieces of familial history and set them up in a brand-new space as its occupant with the butterfly-filled stomach navigates a new community. Just like going to college. The bed, their bed is a very important part of the move.

Making the bed for that first night’s sleep in their new home is our most important, poignant task. It is made with hospital corners and the last thing the new resident will do on move day is get in it. Move day was days or months in the making. It’s the end of one chapter and the beginning of a new one.

We often imagine clients waking the next day. If we did our job well, they open their eyes and see the same chair in the corner, radio on the bed’s nightstand and familiar pictures on the wall. Aside from all that is the that flat pillow on the other side of the hump. That pillow is a reminder of the pillow talk, the child after a nightmare and most importantly, the person or pet, who flattened it.

Go to bed, make the bed, move the bed. We love bed.

Erin DiCarlo is Founder and President of Dovetail Companies, which specializes in transition services.