How many times have I made the bed? Proactive Aging

 

 

 

 

This morning as I was making the bed I wondered how many times in my life I had made my bed. I make my bed every day because my mother taught me as a young child both how to make a bed and the importance of daily organization. A well-made bed is a good start to the day and a welcoming comfort at bed time.

I believe I started making my bed at about the age of ten. There are 365 days in a year so my best estimate is that I have made my bed 19,710 times. Does that mean I have been organized 19,710 days? Not exactly, but I can tell you I am an organized and rather tidy person so I guess my mother was right.

What concerns me the most is how fast the time goes from one bed making to the other? I make my bed and before I know it I am making it again. The first thing I do each day is wake up in my bed and the last thing I do at night is go to sleep in my bed. It is my refuge from the world. I have always felt safe and secure snuggled into my bed. I am one of the lucky ones. I have always had a warm safe place to sleep. Many people don’t.

I do need to subtract from 19,710 the number of nights I have slept in a hotel. In a hotel you never make the bed. I also have to subtract the week I spent in the hospital unable to get out of bed. I also need to subtract the times someone else made the bed for me. But I can make up for this loss by counting the number of times I made my children’s beds or made the bed for someone else.

All I can tell you is that I have made the bed a lot times in my life. I am lucky to have a bed and to have the ability to make it each day. Most of all I am lucky to be able to get up out of bed, to have my feet hit the floor, and get up and move.

 Next time you make your bed think about how many times you have laid down in a bed and slept in peace. Think about how important a bed is to your life. It is a place or refuge, a place of rest, a place of love, a place of sleep and a place of dreams.

In the end we will all count our time on earth by the days we lived and nights we’ve slept. Be grateful each time you make your bed because it is the start of another day and if you make your bed with care it will welcome you back over and over again. It is the place where dreams are made and where life gets renewed for another new day. How many times have you made your bed? If you are lucky it’s been many times and counting.

Doctor Lynn

http://www.facebook.com/DrLynnAnderson