Multiple Collapses

Several weeks ago, I realized the dip in the mattress at the head of the bed in the middle was getting deeper and deeper, to the point the sheets weren’t staying on. I found this weird because, yes, I sit on the bed with my laptop at night to write, but a) my weight should not be causing that much of a dip, and b) I don’t even sit there, and I googled solutions for dealing with a dramatic dip in a mattress that is only three years old. This is how I ended up at 2-3 a.m. trying to move the mattress in the limited confines of my bedroom to investigate and found the double boxsprings were falling inward. From there, I discovered the bedframe was collapsing, because some of the bolts had somehow gone missing.

That was exhausting and probably not a normal thing to investigate in the middle of the night, but I’m of the “can’t sleep until I figure this out” variety. I took some steps to fix it and it held.

For a time.

Until last night I was sitting there with the cats, trying to get some editing done, when the steel frame made a noise and the bed dropped a few inches to the side.

I cannot risk a cat being under there when the damn thing finally calls it quits so I, once again, in the small confines of my room with just a couple of feet to maneuver, by myself with cats underfoot, started moving the queen-size mattress and boxsprings again, this time with a mind to remove the frame completely.

Nearly an hour later I collapsed on a bed that at least will not collapse (Mo nearly got herself crushed because she won’t listen; Shawn, on the other hand, respects my NO, DANGER voice, because I am Mother), hands cut in spots from the steel, temper high but wavering, and burst into tears.

It was not the only collapse of the night–I have extremely limited storage (and it is such a pain to get things donated–yes, I need to have less stuff overall, but I keep being given things, and here we are), and use a thing on the back of the door to hold sheets. Someone, who may or may not respond to the name “Shawn”, likes to jump from the wardrobe to the back of the door, and some sheets put back there after the recent round of laundry (more below), the weight on the old hooks was too much and that collapsed as well.*

So the bed is on the floor, the spare sheets are on the bed, the room I have been trying to get in order is in shambles, and I am exhausted.

This comes the day after I decided to tackle the Laundry Pile of DOOM–I do have facilities in the building but that’s a trip downstairs, around the row of buildings to the back, and into the basement, and I very rarely have coins so that’s another special trip out. I hand-wash as much as possible and always have as I’ve never had a car. With the costs of everything going up, though, I’d picked up good drying rack, thinking I could wash more by not drying in the machine.

This will take a period of expectations-adjustment considering how long it takes things to dry indoors, and that carrying back around the buildings and up twenty-something stairs two loads of wet laundry in a basket is particularly more difficult (in this weather, even the relative briefness of the trek meant the top layer of laundry also picked up ice crystals).

At least someone is enjoying what he believes to be a jungle gym.

We started this week with him headbutting my hands as I walked past him on the counter on the way to wash the roasted garlic I’d been handling and I got roasted garlic on his eye and I have been convinced for days that he somehow would absorb enough to cause anemia. I am very tired.

Anyway, everything is in shambles physically, and everything is in shambles mentally.

If this was a very depressing fictional story, this is the point in which the heroine’s internal can be seen through the eternal, her environment mimicking her mental and/or emotional state. I use it often in fiction and I feel a little bad for my characters.

I know it is burnout but I feel completely broken. It isn’t as if I don’t have ideas, I just struggle to write anything. Design work that should be easy isn’t clicking (I have no idea if this is viewable outside of Bsky but I told Krista I was broken and she gave a simple example of what will work for her series rebrand and, well, I gave her this). And I do not have time to collapse in a heap.

A friend is going to hit IKEA (I am told this is no great hardship) and investigate the beds we looked at online last night, and I’ve got an eye to eventually get one with some storage drawers**. This will probably not be until late spring as I have to see how the back tax paying is going and what the current ones will be before I can commit to a significant expense, and for now my focus is just making it through the month with a white-knuckled grip on everything, avoiding any further collapses.

The interlude in my day was brought you to by garlic and cheese pull-apart bread from the local grocery store and a very, very large mocha latte. Now it’s back to work because come hell or high water I gotta pay rent.

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*There is a longer version of this story at Bsky that involves me no longer caring if my door was mysteriously opened in the night by a murderer.

**There is a scene in Alone at Night involving Waverly having to put together a bed with storage drawers and I find it a little humourous that people will be reading that as I’m possible doing the same. At least she has some help, though.