Beds -- 50+

Why am I counting the number of "gap year" beds? Good question. At first, the count was kind of a game, I guess. Something to keep me amused and interested.  But I could have counted cities visited, countries visited, cabs taken. But I selected beds.

A number of years ago, I completed a dissertation which included data collection and analysis. During the process, I came to appreciate data in a new way. Information can help us describe, understand and explain experiences. So perhaps counting beds is a way of capturing and understanding the year. My husband R has been tracking miles driven. Periodically, he reports our miles travelled (by car only -- not plane, bike, ship, train, or any other mode).  It seems we are both attempting to capture and understand our experiences via numbers.

 No matter, this is how the count began. Our bed in Chicago was old, purchased several states and moves ago. We decided it wasn't worth storing or moving west. Our plan was to dump the bed the day before moving day and sleep one night on our blow up mattress. Problem was the battery operated pump had unexpectedly died. No prob, we decided. We'll just sleep on our bedroom floor. It's carpeted! With a few quilts and all, it will be fine.  This is the kind of bad thinking that comes when people are overwhelmed from making too many decisions, have way too much to do, and have been living the stress generated by an imminent cross country move. R is 63 and I was closing in on 60 at the time. It  had been a long time since we'd slept on any floor. It was getting late and since the movers would arrive by 9:30am the next morning we snuggled down (more like lowered ourselves) to the bed/floor to sleep.

I wouldn't really describe our time on the floor as sleep.  At 2 am we were both awake, hips and backs loudly protesting their treatment. At 2:30 am we were up, drinking the first of many cups of coffee, and by 3 am R was working on packing up the car. Bed #1 is really a non-bed that launched the gap year.

We left Chicago that afternoon, unrested, sore, a little anxious, and excited. After the sleepless night on non-bed #1 any place we stayed would be a step up. That optimistic belief actually did not hold true -- unbeknownst to us, worse beds were in our future. That day in the car, I started the bed-counting-game, tracking the number on my iPhone. Traveling from the Midwest to the west took us through -- Davenport, IA, Kearney, NB, Colorado Springs, Cortez, CO, Flagstaff, AZ, Tucson, AZ and finally Palm Desert where we met up with family and friends. Seven beds. Who knew there would be so many more?

Why count beds?  At their most basic, beds represent rest, a place to sleep. I think tracking beds expresses my restlessness. More beds. More adventure. More cities, countries, experiences.  R likes to say this is our time to "pick up and go." Will the gap year cure the restlessness? Do I want it to?

Keep counting.

By the way, current count -- 53 beds.