When you are spending most of your time on the couch, that couch might be a bit beaten up. You eat in it, you write in it, you drink in it, you watch TV in it, you have your cold in it, you cuddle with your cat in it, you live your life in it. No wonder.
1,5 years ago I had worn out the mattress cover. No wonder. An upholsterer took on the job to sew me a new one, and I’m not quite sure why but it kind of didn't happen. So for a very long time now I’ve had a bed sheet wrapped around the mattress. In the wait for the new cover. Which could happen any day.
The sheet lived it’s own life on my mattress with me on top. Often a wrinkly hunch inunder my right shoulder. A loose piece of fabric floating around in constant need of adjustment.
I don’t like it when things are out of place. And I really do hate temporary solutions. The in betweens. Especially when transforming into a constant. So, 1,5 years.
This week though, it happened. The upholsterer was ready to do his job. And I was out of mattress for two days. I put some replacement on the base of the couch but it didn't work at all and was bad for my back.
That’s why I suddenly found myself sitting in my sofa chair.
Sitting is usually hard for me, but at this point the only place to lie down was worse. So I came up with a way of doing it. Legs and feet on the ottoman. And found it really interesting.
First. It’s a big difference between lying and sitting, even though in a cozy sofa chair. You feel stronger. More upright. Of corse. More normal.
Secondly. Spending some hours at a different place in the room gives you a different perspective.
For seven years now I’ve been lying on the couch in my upstairs great room. I know every angle of the room looking at it from the east corner of my day bed. The sofa chair on the opposite side of the coffee table is mostly empty. Sometimes there might be laundry waiting to be folded. And occasionally someone is sitting there. A visitor, or one of my home care people. But the sofa chair is not a place inhabited by me. Has never been, actually.
Sitting in the sofa chair that first evening I felt like a guest in my home. I looked over at the couch. All the pillows for my support. The walker - which in Sweden has four wheels and is called a rollator, I can never understand how old and disabled people are helped by a walker which you have to lift to move forward! The eaten dinner tray on the table. The pile of news papers and magazines. The throw. My calendar. The chargers for the different technical devises. I am looking at my life over there.
I am taking a good look at it. And sitting upright makes me mentally able to take a step back from it. I am liking being in this new place. Wanting to do it again. Which I did the second evening. Liking it as much.
On Wednesday I got the mattress back! Upholstered. Looking good. Feeling good. Clean, in one piece, solid, nothing even remotely temporary about it. Everything about it was right! I love it, and I love lying down on it. And I can finally cross it out from my eternal list of big and small things to attend to and fix, how wonderful!
Next time I visit Umeå, I must stop buy and fold your laundry, that would be the least I could do. Until then, keep cuddling.
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