Smoothing The Wrinkles of Yesterday

I just finished making the bed.  As I was removing the old sheets and smoothing the freshly washed ones across the mattress I thought of the importance of freshening life up by airing it out and making a clean change, taking a fresh look.

So many effects come together to hold us in the same place from day to day keeping us from airing ourselves out, opening up our hearts.  When closed to new possibilities, our hearts, thoughts, and goals get as musty and wrinkled as an unmade bed.  We sleep, toss, turn and dribble in the same beliefs from day to day, year to year.  Without shaking things up and letting the breeze blow through, we wallow in the sameness; even our dreams become stale.  If we don’t take a look at the frayed trim we can’t fix it.  At this point in my life, I am attempting to strengthen my frayed edges and not let my dreams become stale.

The expression, “you’ve made your bed, now lie in it”, is really very true.  We all have to accept the consequences of our choices, actions, decisions, and thoughts.  One particular turn years ago may have had unforeseen consequences.  Sometimes, merely cleaning up cannot erase some actions – the results may be irreversible.  But, even in those circumstances, we can air what has been done and resolve to not do the same thing again.  We can speak to people we may have hurt, hug people we love, and comfort people in pain.  We can listen with more than our ears and feel with more than our fingertips.

Due to circumstances beyond my control in 2009 (an owner of a company putting corporate profits into drugs and draining the company dry) I was left unemployed at a time when the economy was not the best.  That particular action put me to bed with the necessity of forging a fresh start.  Although I was earning a very nice living at my prior position, I never enjoyed the work, only the people I worked with.  I rarely felt as though I was contributing anything positive to the world through my work there.  (I did feel positive at my prior company where I thoroughly enjoyed the work AND the people, what a blessing that was.)  The fact that I did it every workday shows that I had my price, something I am not particularly proud of.

However, being forced away from all that handed me a golden opportunity.  I was involuntarily pushed to air myself out and take a fresh look at my surroundings.  It could be stated that I was thrown out of bed.  After landing on the floor, I pulled off the old sheets and took a long look at the decades old mattress.  Like life, it wasn’t a bed of roses that stared back at me.  After a long look I could see beyond the tattered covering and feel a healthy strength of support, something we all desperately need at one time or another.  People who believe they don’t need any support should try sleeping without a mattress once in awhile – truth hurts.

Life happens, but dreams happen, too, even when those dreams fall into ruts.  We need to harness our dreams and use them to create positive, productive changes before they grow stale.  Just as flipping a mattress erases the grooves that have become traps you fall into, sometimes life needs to be flipped to get you on a fresh path that will lead you to a new beautiful destination.

Many of us have a comfy bed – and we should enjoy it, but just think how much better that bed will feel after spending part of the day helping those who may have fallen onto a bed of nails.  Helping others, offering a smile to someone who is down or needs assistance, can cultivate your own pleasant dreams and beautiful future.  Smiling is contagious, and that is one contagion we should try to catch and pass along.  It may even keep us from “waking up on the wrong side of the bed”, which is never a happy experience for yourself or anyone you come in contact with during the day.

When I make my bed in the morning now, I will be thinking about what qualities I want to tuck in safely and which ones I want to wash away.  There are only so many nights we all get to sleep on this side.  If I can keep the finite nature of life in mind, like the life of a good mattress, I will keep my dreams vibrant, my backbone strong, and my life fresh and new.   

Lovely pillows and soft sheets are wonderful and help make a bed beautiful, just as lovely thoughts and kind words can make your world beautiful.  Using them all well and often will hopefully keep us all safely, happily tucked in and enable us to share a world full of ever changing possibility.