I believe your bedside table has seen the parts of you that you expertly hide.
Everybody has a bedside table. I don’t care if it’s made in Ikea or something you bought at a flea market and decided to give it a chance. I mean I totally get it, furniture is expensive.
If you truly want to know how I’m doing, don’t ask me. Look at my bedside table. That piece of furniture has seen all my sides. But most importantly, it has seen my most honest and vulnerable side.
It has seen good and bad days. It has seen me stay up late at night and sleep in half the next day.
On good days, you’ll see a nice cup of tea, a book where the bookmark is jumping forward each day, an apple-scented candle burning at the right hours, my phone charging with a cable that isn’t tangled.
On those days, it is cleaned routinely with the mat washed and replaced. The residents of the drawers are happy and satisfied. They stay in line and keep things orderly.
My vaseline tub, clean and its lid non-sticky, is sitting in the first drawer.
My tablet with the pen attached at the back and its cover spotless, is residing in the second drawer.
There are several hair ties, all of them kept neatly in a box. They insist on staying in the first drawer. Something to do with the airflow. Fine by me.
I have allowed 1 night cream at a time to stay. I keep it in the second drawer. It doesn’t complain. I rarely worry about it.
On bad days, it’s chaos.
The candle was snuffed out hours ago. Its lid, missing.
My alarm clock is facing the wall. And so am I.
Drawer residents are screaming and throwing up.
My bookmark is sitting on page 47 for 3 weeks.
Tea was inhaled in the morning but the mug is sitting upright. Crusty and smelly, tea leaves stuck to the bottom.
The mat has several questionable stains. Nail polish? Tea? Candle wax? Who knows?
A sock is peeking from the bottom drawer. Its mate, nowhere to be found. Socks don’t even go in these drawers. I don’t know who put them here.
My Vaseline tub is sitting on the top, quietly judging me, its lid gone too.
My tablet’s pen is under the alarm clock. The tablet is on my bed, somewhere under the covers.
The hair ties are wreaking havoc. They are crying and running around with their wigs flying. They are not in the first drawer but behind the bedside table for some reason.
The night cream is stuck in the space between the drawers. I don’t know how to reach it.
At the end of the day, whether good or bad, this piece of furniture quietly receives whatever I’m capable of that day. Nobody has taken my bedside table away from me. You’ll wake up everyday and find your bedside table there. No matter what.